New Video: Monovlog!

I enjoyed doing the current events video, so here's a six-minute newscast starring me.

New Video: Courtesy Call

Here's another video from the "I Take Requests" pre-show.

Funky President

I generally don't write about politics, because the people who really want to talk about politics are the people you really don't want to talk politics with. But I was reading what Danny Rouhier had to say about H.C. and it got me thinking: if I had to bet $1,000 today, I'd say a Republican takes the White House in 2008. Here's why:

Because Democrats vote for high school class presidents.

Yes, class presidents: The people who have naked ambition, who do all the right things for resume, who want "power" in the high school sense for who knows what reason. They're always a little too friendly, to the point where you don't know if they're sincere; they're always a little bit bitter when less studious people succeed ... People who are dying to win. Clearly they want it more than other people, and it's only high school government, so why not let them have it? Let them do something that doesn't really affect anything important. They're happy, and no one else cares.

That vibe can even get you elected to Congress -- people don't really know what Congress does or how it works, so why not elect the poindexter? But U.S. president? At that point you want a person you can understand, not the high school class president. You want a person with charisma.

Say what you want about the dudes, but Bill Clinton and George W. Bush have some kind of charisma. Who else have Dems nominated lately? Kerry, Gore, Dukakis, Mondale. Class presidents all.

Hillary Clinton is a class president. She's Reese Witherspoon in "Election." She has a good resume, and all the AP students know that she's got a good class rank, and they can rationalize all kinds of reasons why everyone SHOULD vote for her. Never mind that people probably WON'T ... logically, they just figure she's the best choice, so they can swallow their gut feeling and pick her. That's why they're going to end up pissed off in November 2008 -- they can't imagine why anyone would logically choose someone else, someone with more personality.

Best bet for the Dems, honestly? Obama. Probably not enough experience; maybe a little bit too cynical in his manipulation of his image. But he seems to have some style. However, his resume is too light to get votes from the stuck-up honor students that make up the hard left these days.

Who else has a legit shot? Edwards. Class president.

The GOP might not have a breakout candidate, but they have a few guys who put out at least a decent likable vibe -- Giuliani and McCain. They both have shown the ability to be serious, but also to laugh at themselves. Something Hillary can't do.

A lot can happen in a few months, but right now I'd be surprised if a) Hillary isn't nominated; and b) Hillary doesn't lose in November.

OK, I'm done.

And Don't Forget the Robot

I don't watch enough of "How I Met Your Mother."

ORANGE!

Are you in the Syracuse region? Do you like me? Then you are in luck for I will be in the Syracuse region Wednesday through Sunday, performing at the Wise Guys Comedy Showroom.

I know several people from Syracuse, and when I asked them what to see while I was in town, they all answered "the mall."

Seriously.

SAD Sacks

The world now ends at 5 p.m. every day. Whee!

Is there a legit reason for Daylight Savings Time? Not really.

So if we're gonna do this, let's do this. Daylight isn't worth a damn if you're stuck in an office all day. Can't we just move everything so that the sun comes up right around 10 a.m.? That way we'd be out enjoying sidewalk cafes until 9 o'clock, 25 degree temperatures be damned. Sure, the new days might mess with farmers, but in the modern economy, there are only four farmers in America. They'll manage.

Crippling nighttime depression sets in at sundown. If sundown is at 10 p.m., big whoop -- I'm going to bed. If it's at 5 p.m., then I'm going to stare out a dark window and cry for a few hours before collapsing in a heap. No fun.

Of course, all this will ruin the comedy club business, but I'm willing to take that hit for the good of the nation. Don't worry about me. Second-tier law schools will always be there for me.

Truth Bagg

Ian Bagg was at the D.C. Improv last week -- check out this online interview he did with the local NBC affiliate.

Lemonade from lemons.

WWHMD

En route to Syracuse, I drove by car with Pennsylvania vanity plates: WWHMD.

I have thought long and hard about what this could mean. A Google search turned up a few hits related to the Insane Clown Posse, but nothing truly conclusive. Plus it wasn't really the kind of car an Insance Clown Posse fan would drive, in that it was a car at all, and I doubt their fans have the money to own such things. Here is my best guess:

What would He-Man do?

• Your co-worker shirks his duties on a group project, leaving meetings early, missing every deadline and failing to complete assigned tasks in any useful capacity. You and other workers make up for the slacker by working twice as hard, and you do a fantastic job. Your boss decides to give cash bonuses to the whole team, even the lazy co-worker. What would He-Man do? Summon the power of Greyskull to transform yourself from a mild-mannered office worker into a hulking giant in a loincloth. Gently suggest to your co-worker, in the name of justice, that he hand over his bonus to other team members. If the co-worker refuses, hit him with a four-ton rock spire.
• Desperately in need of rent money, you go for a walk to clear your head. While passing the house of a wealthy neighbor, you find a money clip holding $400 on the curb next to his Mercedes -- almost certainly his money, though he does not need it. You, on the other hand, run a non-profit foundation from your home to help starving syphilitic orphans. What would He-Man do? As prince of Eternia, you should have easy access to the planet's treasury. Clearly very little has been spent on planetary infrastructure or law enforcement, so it's not like you're putting the planet in the red or anything.
• The Romans, tired of your rabble-rousing, decide that you should be crucified. They bribe a close friend of yours to betray your whereabouts, and you are captured, imprisoned, and slated to die. What would He-Man do? Though cowardly, your feline companion Cringer will seek out help if asked. Send him to find Man-At-Arms and Teela, who should be able to infiltrate the Roman prison with their flying sleds. Once freed, summon Moss Man, Man-E-Faces, Mech-a-Neck, Ram Man and Orko to invade Rome. Assassinate the emperor with a bolt of pure energy from the Power Sword and assume control of the mightiest empire known to man. Then send every available legion after Skeletor, instead of the usual small groups of oddly-powered vigilantes.

Take It All Off

There's a lot of "adult entertainment" establishments in Syracuse, but I didn't realize how many until I overheard this comment on Thursday:

"Salt City ... that's the porno shop by the Chuck-E-Cheese."

Also, today I drove by a "gentlemen's club" with a sign indicating that they now welcome "All Construction Workers." Finally, the great construction worker strip club schism has been healed! Finally, drywall hangers and welders can join hands and, with their free hands, shove money in a woman's crotchular region.

Better, stronger buildings will surely result.

Salt of the Earth

There is no "salt season." Every day, salt is a part of our lives, seasoning our hopes and dreams as well as our meals. So it stands to reason that a museum dedicated to salt would be open every day, right?

Guess again. The Syracuse Salt Museum is closed from October through April.

Sure, I can cope. But I just feel bad for the children.

Fortunately, the museum is right near a walking path, so I was able to go for a four mile run on the shores of the most polluted lake in America.

SYRACUSE!

Actually, I really like it here.

Las Vegas

Greetings from the 20somethingth floor of the glorious Caesar's Palace hotel and casino and snack bar and health spa and shopping mall and sociological experiment and ... etc. It's good to know that if an actual Caesar were to travel through time and see Caesar's Palace, he'd probably crap his toga on the spot (except Nero, he'd be down). God bless America.

I'm here for the "Lucky 21" portion of The Comedy Festival, but this is actually my first ever trip to Vegas. After one day, I have learned that if anyone ever asks you, "Why do we even need organized religion?" a good answer is "Las Vegas!"

Fun!

1) The Caesar's Palace in Atlantic City is like downtown Grozny compared to this place. They should really change the name of the A.C. branch to "Caesar's Crappy Beach House That He Bought As a Real Estate Investment." I swear to you, C.P. Las Vegas, like the Tardis, is bigger on the inside than the outside. And I say this knowing that the outside is huge. They clearly have a black hole in a storage closet somewhere so they can fit in more video poker.

1.5) All the supercasinos (C.P., Bellagio, New York New York ...) are very, very, very large, to the point where it is exhausting walking down the road to the next casino. I think their hope is that you will collapse of exhaustion before you reach the next casino, at which point hotel workers will drag your body to an empty slot machine and leave you there until you wake up. You check in, but you don't check out.

2) I walked the Strip once in the afternoon, and then I jogged it at night. It's a little different when the sun goes down, because there are some casinos that only exist in the evening. I swear. At 2 p.m. I'm pretty sure that some of the lots were just tumbleweeds. Around 6 p.m., with all the lights blaring, the number of casinos triples. I don't know where they go during the day. Maybe Lance Burton makes them DISAPPEAR!

3) Speaking of Lance Burton, there are many performers here in Las Vegas, and judging from the signs, they have all been named the "Comedian/Entertainer/Hypnotist/Female Impersonator/Topless Dancer of the Year." The signs never specify who named them that, nor which year. Astonishingly, though many of these people are the greatest entertainers who ever lived (and have the 50-foot-high billboards of their heads to prove it), you have never heard of them. Danny Gans, I'm looking at you. Also, someone thought it was a great idea to make a very large poster of Louie Anderson for the Excalibur. You could drive a truck through the gap in his teeth, and oh yeah, in the poster he's LYING DOWN. At more than three bills, that's not a good look, Louie. A head needs to roll for this. Also also, every casino has its own Cirque show. If China wants to cripple Nevada's economy, they can just recall all of the acrobats. Done and done.

4) The casinos here at C.P. are pretty clean looking and reasonably well lit. The casinos in the second-tier establishments are the most horribly depressing rooms in the world. Really, they give you the overwhelming urge to shoot yourself. There's nothing worse than a dark smoky room of ugly people playing slot machines. I don't mean that as a joke. That being said, I highly recommend the Stage Door Casino, one block off the Strip. $2.50 gets you a Miller Lite and a hot dog, plus they have video poker. It is the size of a small 7-11. In fact, it probably started out as a 7-11, because everything is a casino now. You get off the airplane and the first thing you see in the terminal is slots. I'm sure if they can figure out how to get video poker on public buses they'll do it.

5) Everything costs money, at least at C.P. I'm trying to breathe as little as possible in case there's an "extra air" surcharge. I decided to use the fitness center, and as I tried to walk in I was informed that it costs $25 to work out. Fortunately, because of the size of C.P., I had already walked three miles just to get to the fitness center.

5.5) Before my run on the Strip, I walked through the casino in a skin-tight underarmor top and the floral print bathing suit I often jog in. After my run, while sweaty and smelly, I walked through the mall attached to C.P. to get back to my room. Ordinarily, I'd feel self-conscious walking through big crowds dressed like that, but in Vegas it's impossible to feel like an a-hole. Really. Every time you worry about how you look, someone 10 times worse walks past within a minute. It's great for the self esteem. They should build an ad campaign around this.

6) Every 10 feet or so on the strip, there are Mexican immigrants trying to hand you pamphlets for prostitutes and call girls. Sometimes there are about five of them standing shoulder to shoulder, like a "wall" in a soccer penalty kick, but handing out hooker pamphlets instead. I know these guys aren't making a ton, but they wouldn't have so many guys out there if there wasn't some kind of demand for the services. The moral: wash your hands a lot when you visit Las Vegas. It's just good sense.

7) I ate at the Burger King in O'Shea's Casino (now with New Beer Pong Tables!) for dinner. There was a skinny guy there, white as can be, who had ridiculously oversized pants that were almost literally falling off of him. Anyone walking by could see quite easily that about 50 percent of his bare butt was actually touching his seat. And yet he tucked a napkin into his shirt while eating. VEGAS!

Syracuse ...

Just so you know, I have a little more on Syracuse and Rochester ... just too busy to get it all down right now. The Eastman House was awesome, though.

The West Plumstead Avenue Street Recreation Association Record Book and Related Asterisks

Home Runs, Kickball

• Jimmy Delroy, 114
• Danny O'Doyle, 103 *
• Chris White, 98

* O'Doyle kicked 14 additional home runs from June 8, 1986, to June 17, 1986, when the pizza box serving as second base was lost and no local family ordered pizza for a week. Records for the Three Base Era are not recognized by the WPASRA.

Consecutive Wins, Kickball (pitching)

• Geoff Lidle, 15 *
• Jimmy Delroy, 8
• Billy Stanton, 7 **

* Lidle's streak was preserved on three occasions when possible losses were suddenly interrupted by Lidle taking his ball and going home.

** Stanton's streak, while legitimate, is tempered by the fact that he was a 33-year-old bachelor going through a rough break-up and a bout of unemployment at the time.

Whangings, Stevenball

• Tommy "T.J." Johnson, 1 *

* Stevenball, in which competitors attempt to whang Steven Johnson in the head with a small rock from a distance of 10 feet, was played exactly once in 1984 for a duration of 30 seconds before the league office forever suspended play and Atari priviliges for all participants.

Goals Against Average, Street Hockey *

• Phil Iannucio, 8.32 **
• Danny O'Doyle, 16.32

* The average WPASRA street hockey game from 1982-1987 lasted 23.24 minutes, with the shortest game at 2.5 minutes and the longest at 3 hours, 48 minutes before play was called due to the start of "The Dukes of Hazzard."

** Due to guilt purchases following his parents' divorce, Iannucio was the only player in WPASRA history to own goalie equipment, which he did not share -- clearly not behavior learned from his mother, who apparently shared quite a lot.

Deaths, Murder the Man With the Ball

• Steven Johnson, 104 *

* On 95 occasions, Johnson was playing other ball-related games when spontaneous sessions of Murder the Man With the Ball began.

Leadoff Murders, Murder the Man With the Ball

• Tommy "T.J." Johnson, 95

Receiving Touchdowns, Street Two-Hand Touch

• Pete Patowski , 214 *
• 5 others tied at 15

* Patowski was always paired with steady quarterback Frank Patowski, a former college-football standout whose dreams were upended by a serious knee injury in his sophomore season. All other teams were quarterbacked by Bob Delroy, Esq., a chain-smoking overweight lawyer in his late 40s who often wore dress socks with sandals and whose throwing motion was severely impeded by his desire not to spill his Yuengling.

Points Per Game, Basketball (half-court, White's driveway)

• Alex Riley, 23.3 *
• Pete Patowski, 10.2
• Chris White, 8.7

* A thyroid condition gave Riley a two-foot height advantage over all other players from 1983-1985.

BMX Cinderblock Jumping

• 15 tied at 0

Whangings, Tommyball

• Steven Johnson, 1 *

* The only known game of Tommyball, in which competitors attempt to hit Tommy "T.J." Johnson with a Ford Festiva, was played in 2006 at a Johnson family holiday function that you may have read about in the papers.

New Video: Millard Fillmore and You

I am thankful for the U.S. presidents. So here's the latest presidential feature, on the president who's easiest to forget:

Movie Review: No Country For Old Men

A lot of people die in this movie, and most of them are killed by Javier Bardem, who has a Herman's Hermits haircut. It's neat stuff.

Apparently this is the best reviewed movie of the year so far, and I guess it's going to win some Oscars. I liked it, but I won't say I loved it. Great acting, great editing, great scenery ... but too low key, maybe? Everyone in the movie seems pretty stoic, and it makes it hard to get too involved in what's happening: "Twelve dead Mexicans in the desert, huh? Well gollllllleeeee." This movie would be better with one guy, maybe Bill Paxton, walking around and losing his ***t every five minutes.

TOMMY LEE JONES: We got some 9 millimeter shells over here.

BILL PAXTON: Holy s**t! They're all dead! All of them!

TOMMY LEE JONES: This one looks ...

BILL PAXTON: What the **** are you talking about we gotta get the hell outta here! JUMPIN' JESUS ON A POGO STICK! I mean, ****!

TOMMY LEE JONES: ... like a .45.

BILL PAXTON: Game over! Holy ********** hell, are you ******* kidding me? There are ******* brains all over the ******* upholstery! AAAH! AAAH! AAAAH!

I'm sure we can still achieve this with green screen technology.

En Garde

I was recently slapped in the face with $5,000. My roommate, preparing for travel in central Africa, had to have a large sum of cash on his person, since most ATMs in central Africa have either been stabbed with machetes of have truly atrocious usage fees.

As I was watching television on the couch, he walked over, said, "Look up for a second," and then slapped me across the face. With $5,000.

I don't think "awesome" is strong enough of a word.

And We're Back!

Howdy. So much has happened since last we spoke. How have you been? Is that a new scar? Well, it's your fault for not reading the signs at the meat processing plant. Way to ruin the tour for everyone.

Me, I've been all kinds of busy ...

1) George Eastman House

During my trip to Syracuse, I did probably the most enjoyable thing that city has to offer: I drove to Rochester. HA! But the George Eastman House is in Rochester. If you don't know the name offhand, he's the guy who: 1) invented Kodak cameras and dry-plate film developing; 2) was marginally insane.

He was insane in a good way, though. It mostly manifested as perfectionism. The best story: Eastman had his house built (around 1905) at a cost of $300,000. It was a swanky spread, since he was something like the sixth-richest person in America. Every morning when he was home he would read the paper in his conservatory room while listening to his personal on-staff organist (again, crazy) kick out the jams on his in-house organ. After a few years of this, Eastman decided he didn't like the dimensions of that particular room, so he came up with a plan to saw his house in half, move one half about 9 feet away, and then bridge the gap with more house. The original contractors, on hearing the plan, told him "no way in hell." So he shopped around and found a company from Pittsburgh to do it ... for $700,000, more than twice the original cost of the house. Yeah.

What else:

• Eastman loved the color green, and several rooms in his house were that color. At Kodak, he made all of his notes in green pencil, and no one else in the company was allowed to use that color. If you saw a green note on your desk, you knew who it was from.
• He latched on to a movement which pushed for a calendar made up of 13 equal 28-day, 4-week months. He lobbied Congress heavily, saying it would make accounting and other recordkeeping much easier, especially when trying to make projections or compare time periods. The extra month would be called "Sol" and it would go between June and July. While this was never adopted, the Kodak corporation used the 13-month calendar until the 1980s.
• Eastman was an avid hunter and kept a mounted elephant head in his conservatory. By my count there was at least one dead animal per room, including the always classy "animal foot ashtrays." Plus an elephant-foot waste basket. He used all parts of the elephant, did George Eastman. All this might explain why we call photos "snapshots" -- since snapshot is a hunting term meaning a shot fired without aiming, and the original Kodak camera had no viewfinder.
• Eastman's father died when he was relatively young; he lived with his mother and never married or dated. His mother was stern woman. When he told her that he had become a millionaire, her response was "That's nice, George."

Next time you're in Rochester stop in. The house tour is great, plus they have excellent displays on the history of the camera and some photo exhibits as well. In the grand scheme, Eastman is propably as important to America as the Rockefellers or Morgans. He democratized memories. You can't have a cultural impact much bigger than that.

Sad epilogue: Eastman killed himself. He was suffering from fatal diseases, and so he (gulp) shot himself in the heart with a Luger. Yikes. They actually have his suicide note on display at the house. Here it is:

2) Millard Fillmore

If you didn't see the totally awesome video, I stopped by the Millard Fillmore birthplace in Summerhill, New York (about 50 miles south of Syracuse). There are better Fillmore sites in Buffalo, but I'm not working in Buffalo anytime soon. So you get Cayuga County. Deal with it.

The hard part was actually finding the site -- it's not easy to pull a street address and directions off the Internet for this one, probably because the Freemasons have suppressed all Millard Fillmore lore. There's a replica cabin at Fillmore Glen State park, which is 5 miles away from the site, but no one was working in the park office when I arrived. I had to go to a gas station and ask the person at the counter about Millard Fillmore. If you ever want to feel like a nerd, that's a good way to do it.

Once you actually get there (it's way up on a hill), there's nothing to see. The log cabin is long gone. There's a flag pole, a sign, and some picnic tables. The flag is tattered. There aren't any animatronic robots or anything of the sort. So you have to make your own fun:

3) Lake Onondoga

I went jogging twice along what Syracuse locals proudly call the most polluted lake in America! Here it is:

Nice, huh? As long as you aren't touching the water or ingesting anything that lives in it, it's actually pretty. This also marked my first attempt to transition to cold-weather running, which involves more clothes that warm-weather running. This is sad, because now I can't wear my skin-tight spandex tops and wow the ladies. But it's also happy, because now when my face turns beet red after running one mile and I'm sweating out half my body weight (not my most attractive look) I can pull up the hooded sweatshirt and run in anonymity. I am not traditionally a "jogger," but here are some of the places I've been jogging this year: Lake Huron; Lake Superior; the Tahquamenon River; Lake Onondaga (the most polluted lake in America!); the Las Vegas strip. Hmm. That list wasn't as impressive as I was hoping. Maybe it's because I left off: Uzbekistan; All up in yo' area; On a treadmill powering a mechanical heart for an orphan; the Sea of Tranquility.

Whew. Much better.

4) The Carousel Center

I asked everyone I know from Syracuse for things to do while in town. They all said "The mall." That means the Carousel Center, which is very large and strives to one day surpass the Mall of America for the title of "most depressing white trash vacation destination."

It's going to be an interesting fight. I've been to the Mall of America (in Minneapolis), and in addition to being a very, very large mall, it has an amusement park in the atrium. There are roller coasters and everything. The Carousel Center, on the other hand, has a carousel (just one) near the food court.

Dare to dream, Syracuse.

Two things: First, there was a maternity store in the Carousel Center, and the display out front was for "sexy jeans." At a maternity store. If you're really worried about attracting a man while five months pregnant, then you have much bigger problems than a lack of sexiness. Sexy is probably what got you into this mess in the first place.

Second: How long is it OK to watch a carousel? They aren't really that entertaining, but I figured, hey, I'm at the Carousel Center, I should check this thing out. I'm too old to ride it without taking a kid along, so all that leaves is watching. But do you really want to be the guy standing by himself watching a carousel? After about 30 seconds don't other bystanders assume you're a pervert? I'm pretty sure they do.

Bonus thing! Third: From a creepiness standpoint, is it better to be the guy hanging out in front of the maternity store or the guy watching the carousel? 500 words or less, have it on my desk in the morning.

Intermission

This guy has a great name.

Las Vegas

I was in Vegas from a Tuesday morning through a Sunday morning for The Comedy Festival. I had to perform a grand total of 14 minutes. I had free time. And I had friends in town. So here's what we did ...

5) Siegfried & Roy's Secret Garden (The Mirage)

What's not to love here? First off, there are dolphins. They don't perform, do tricks, or talk, but they are definitely dolphins. They swim back and forth and look very dolphinesque. You can also go view their tank from below surface level. And as an added bonus, you can watch overweight tourists watch the dolphins. They are great.

But that's not all! Beyond the dolphins lies the Secret Garden, where Siegried & Roy keep their lions, tigers, leopards and ... alpacas. Yes, alpacas. The most fearsome of the ... uh ... furry herd animals. Do not bring little children or they will have nightmares.

The lions in the garden look like bottle blonds. Plus, you never see Siegfried and Roy in public anymore. We must therefore conclude that S&R are lycanthropic lions, living in their own Secret Garden during the day and crusing the white-trashy end of the strip at night. In wigs.

6) The Comedy Festival (Caesar's Palace)

I'm not just a participant in The Comedy Festival -- I'm also a client. I couldn't get (i.e. wouldn't pay for) tickets for the big names -- Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, etc. So we decided to go for the second-tier attractions.

Lucky 21. I watched all the other participants in the contest -- a veritable all-star team of comedians who voted themselves into a comedy festival. The best part was that everyone seemed to admit it. Also, since internet voting (in progress now, and by the way I'm not going to win) was the deciding factor instead of judges, all the competitors seemed to be pretty friendly / civil. The showcases were fairly well attended, which is shocking, because for paying customers, it would have cost $35 to see relative nobodies. I guess everything costs at least $35 in Vegas, though -- we were the cheap alternative. I liked a lot of the comics I saw, with special mention to Michael Palascak of Chicago and Eddie Pence of Los Angeles. I chatted with both guys offstage a bit and they seemed pretty solid. Not to imply that they might be holograms. They're just nice guys, is all. Plus, Eddie Pence's lawyer was Chunk from "The Goonies." I have a great job.

Broadband Comedy. The idea here is to take a bunch of internet videos, and then show them to a live audience. Sounds great, huh? Yes, it's all the fun of sitting at your desk and chuckling mildly, but now in a room full of strangers. I'd say the internet is a great incubator for the sketch and comedy stars of tomorrow, but I don't think the "internet funny" skill set really translates to live performance in most cases. Case in point, a part of this show as was a live performance of this video. I hated it live and I hate it only slightly less on video. It's not all garbage though: check out Every Eminem song. On the fence: they debuted a new "Funny or Die" video, now posted on that site. I was talking a club owner after the show and he hit it on the head -- these things aren't really equal to the talent level involved. They look like videos that celebrities made in 45 minutes on a dare.

Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job Live. About 5 percent of the audience thought this was hilarious. 95 percent despised it. After the halfway point there was a steady stream of people walking out in the middle of the show. One of the worst questions for me to answer is "what kind of comedy do you do?" I would love to see the people behind this answer the same question. It's smart people intentionally doing things that are grotesque, over-the-top awkward and utterly moronic. There seems to be minimal structure and minimal editing. Some people love this stuff and think it's astonishingly brilliant. I've never heard a great explanation as to why, and part of the problem is that once you explain comedy, it's not funny anymore. I guess you either get it or you don't.

7) The Festival Lounge (Caesar's Palace)

The best part about being a celebrity like me is that you don't have to pay for anything. There was a festival lounge set up where the beautiful people could hang out, play foozball, eat free food and drink free booze. There may have been call girls available but I never got around to asking. And celebrity sightings? OH YEAH! Hanging around the casino, we saw Chris Rock (who did not want to be bothered, judging from other people approaching him), George Wallace (who was trying to remember all the girls from En Vogue while getting on the elevator), Jeffrey Ross, Chris White, Mark Maron, Carrot Top, Ze Frank, Chris White (in a mirror behind the bar), Frank Caliendo, Nick Swardson, Chris White, Chunk, Wayne Newton, Jared Stern, Jim Florentine, Kevin Pollack, Patrice Oneal, Chris White ... Gliteratti indeed.

The main attraction of the lounge was the foozball table, where bookers were betting weeks of work against hopeful comics, and the many free Twix bars. Twix was a festival sponsor, and if the sight of me walking through a casino eating a Twix bar helps move some candy, then their investment was totally worthwhile.

The secondary attraction was watching socially inept comedians try to network and make connections. My advice to the lonely: 1) Shave; 2) Don't smell like pot; 3) Wear something dressier than an ill-fitting t-shirt; 4) Try not to ask for work or offer your card in the first three minutes.

8) Shopping (All over)

Vegas is not all about food and gambling and shows -- there are also luxury malls attached to just about every major casino. This seems odd, because most of the people in the casinos do not appear to be wearing luxury clothing, and judging from their actual dress, even buying one piece of luxury clothing would force them to make the tough choice between owning one dry-clean-only shirt and having enough Ramen noodles to feed their kids for the next five months. And so I give you this new slogan: "Vegas: Where Luxury and Ugly Do It In a Stairwell."

As it turns out, I didn't pack the right clothes for the trip; I had nothing see-through. Also, I needed more short-sleeved shirts. So my friend Allyson and I walked to the finest clothing store on the Strip: Ross Dress for Less. I had never been in a Ross with a neon sign out front, and I am happy to report that the glitzy sign in no way reflected a change in the values that Ross was built upon: cheapness and partially damaged clothing, mostly in ugly patterns. On our way back, we tried on some hats at an upscale haberdashers:

9) Gambling

James Bond movies probably give you the wrong idea about gambling; that it's all table games and tuxedos and large-breasted women in cocktail gowns. Total crap. Gambling is all about video poker, played at great establishments like the Stage Door Casino (a hot dog and a Bud Light, $2.50).

For the record, I lost $80. I am seeking help for my very serious problem, the problem of being too much of a sissy to bet more. I mean, it's not like I have mortage or anything.

Fun note: All the ATMs in Vegas come with special signs posting numbers to call for gambling addiction. Also, most of the time, I take $200 out of an ATM, and it is the final option on the withdrawal menu. In the casinos, $200 is the FIRST option on the withdrawal menu, which goes to at least $1,000. If you try to withdrawal anything less than $100, security guards appear and punch you in the stomach on general principles. I swear, it happened.

10) Fine Dining

Do you want the key to eating cheaply in Vegas? It's free Twix bars. Sure, you'll start to get migraines and violent mood swings after three days of an all-Twix diet, but think of all the money you'll save for gambling!

Still, you want to have a few nice meals. My friends and I ate at Spago (Caesar's), Trevi (Casear's) and Noodles (Bellagio). And you can get a nice meal on the cheap, if you're smart -- the key is to have a waiter spill water all over Jared Stern, and then have the restaurant void out most of your bill in apology. You will have to travel with Jared Stern for this to work, but I hear he's open to this. Zap him an e-mail.

Now, you also might want a fine beverage or two. You can get alcohol almost anywhere. But there's only one SexxPresso. SexxPresso, for my uncultured readers, is a drive-through coffee place, shaped like a coffee cup, in which the workers are relatively young women in lingerie. Skanky, skanky lingerie. All the drinks come in "cup sizes": A, B or DD. They also all have dirty names, like "Slap-accino." I would show you a picture of the workers, but my overwhelming Catholic shame prevented me from taking one. So instead, here's my friend Becca getting ready to order an iced coffee. If you are businessman, there have to franchising opportunities here. Get down on it.

11) Shark Reef (Mandalay Bay)

They bill this as a "carnivore-based" aquarium, but do you see many things eating other things? The closest thing we saw was one moray eel trying to put its mouth around the head of another moray eel. But for all I know, those eels were just making out. If that is the case, then they should advertise it as a topless moray eel sex show. I want to know what I'm paying $15 to see.

But this is a neat aquarium with quite a few sharks, and also one of those super cool aquarium tunnels that you would totally put in your house if you were a rich, evil genius. I was thinking for a while that it would be neat to have an aquarium ceiling to your bedroom -- it's classier than mirrors, but just as sensual. But then you have to figure that some pretty romantic moments would be spoiled by shark poop settling on the glass. Sigh.

They also had a neat jellyfish tank, a stingray petting zoo, and the rare Japanese Soft Focus Fish, pictured left.

The only thing really missing: alpacas.

More tomorrow ...

Including the Atomic Testing Museum, Hoover Dam, and, time permitting, erotic topless vampires.

12) Atomic Testing Museum

Sometimes it's nice to step back to a simpler time, before we all feared death at the hands of terrorists. A time when the only thing to keep you up at night was the threat of nuclear annihilation rained down from above.

Such is the charm of the Atomic Testing Museum, a mere 15 minute walk off of the Vegas strip! The deserts near Vegas were the home to hundreds and hundreds of atomic tests, both underground and in the atmosphere, and if you can look past the cancer and birth defects and decades of mortal terror, the whole thing is kind of of kitschy.

They have old-school 1950s instructional videos ("The Atom and You"), a theater that simulates the aftershock of watching an atomic test, plus lots of stuff on the development, testing and photographing of the A-Bomb. And a cardboard cutout of Miss Atomic Bomb? Oh hell yeah:

See, the mushroom cloud covers up the naughty bits! And the radiation pretty much kills any kind of bacteria. It's the ultimate birth control.

Stuff I did not know: There was a (mostly successful) effort to build a nuclear powered rocket engine, but the project was basically scrapped for political considerations. It might have put us on Mars by now. Also, there were pilots whose job was to fly THROUGH a mushroom cloud to collect data. That is a crappy, crappy job.

You can buy some old government pamphlets in the gift shop, which have great informative tidbits like this (from "You and Atomic Warfare"): "The first thing that happens when a big bomb goes off is a tremendous flash of bluish-white lite. This light is about fifty times as bright as the sun and a lot closer to you."

Yes, it's closer than the sun. So heads up.

In summary, go to the Atomic Testing Museum -- it's a BLAST! Ha. Ha. Hee.

13) The Eiffel Tower Experience (Paris)

I've been to the actual Eiffel Tower, and it sucks, because it is in France. You get to the top, and all you can see is more France. The Eiffel Tower Experience, however, is in the heart of the Vegas strip, offering a great view of the surrounding casinos, at only half the height of the actual tower. That's American efficiency and awesomeness all in one.

The E.T.E. starts with you buying a $9 ticket. Easy enough. Then you take a ride up to the top in an elevator. Then you look around the top and take pictures, especially of me looking sensitive:

Then there's a 40-minute laser-light show and topless French cabaret. Everyone gets a baguette and they squirt you with perfume on the way out the door. Ooh lah lah!

Me and my posse timed our E.T.E. well -- we got to enjoy sunset over the mountains, plus we had a bird's eye view of ...

14) The Bellagio Fountain Show

This is one of the cooler attractions in Vegas, because it is both impressive and totally free to watch. The only other thing in Vegas that is both impressive and totally free to watch: the immigrant men and women who stand on the Strip and hand out cards for prostitutes. They are tireless. If we could somehow work them into the Bellagio fountain show, I think we'd really have something going.

More to come ...

Show Review: Bite

The human soul, resilient though it may be, can only absorb so much -- world-changing events overwhelm us, leaving us unable to comprehend the magnitude of what we have experienced. Only over time can we process such things, returning to a state of relative clarity, free to describe what has transpired.

The human soul is alot like the human liver that way.

After two weeks, I feel like I'm finally able to tell you about "Bite," the best topless erotic vampire review I've ever seen.

It's a simple, timeless story: Boy loses girl, boy becomes Lord Vampire, boy spends next 400 years scouring the earth in search of the next incarnation of lost girl so that he might make her into a vampire and spend the rest of their damned existence together. Realizing that there are bound to be some lulls along the way, boy also assembles a coven of hot vampire babes to pleasure him.

Vampires fascinate us for many reasons: they are soulless avatars in human form; a sordid reminder of our darkest impulses; creatures blessed with eternal youth yet cursed to serve evil. But "Bite" brilliantly sidesteps these concerns, by making the lady vampires topless, and having them dance to the classic rock hits of the '70s, '80s and '90s -- a narrative path as refreshing as it is bold.

We begin by meeting the coven -- or, to use their official title, the Erotic Angels of Rock. Fire, Ice, Pain, Shimmy, Cat and Tush are introduced to us through the universal language: topless flashdance. Then, we meet the Lord Vampire, who enters in casket levitated in over the audience. Have you ever seen the chandelier fall in "Phantom of the Opera"? It's like that, but ten times more emotional. As to the Lord, I yield to the Bite web site:

He is the most powerful creature on earth and has dwelled here for hundreds of years. He is a majestic, intelligent, talented and passionate creature searching for his Queen of the Night. He is a martial arts expert and performs spellbinding magic and illusions to seduce and display his control over the elements. He plays the piano like Chopin and composes his magical music of the night.

That is a well-rounded resume. Also, he looks like the Undertaker. After some good-natured hi-jinx, the story moves forward, ever forward: audience members are brought to the stage, and then they are eaten.

At this point, you are probably thinking: "What a horrible fate!" Well, you could not be more wrong. Because the bite of the vampire not only makes you a soulless minion of the night, it also grants you amazing gymnastic powers. And so, before my very eyes, a regular white-trash patron of the Strosphere hotel and casino was transformed, along with a lady friend, into a Cirque du Soleil ribbon climber, doing astonishing routines while dangling above the audience.

[NOTE: There are a lot of Cirque shows in Vegas -- five, by my count. Plus there are touring shows. How can there be enough gymnasts and acrobats in the world to fill the demands of Cirque du Soleil? Answer: The managers are French Canadian vampires. They are not "finding" talent. They are making it. You have been warned.]

What's more, a sad, lamentable character -- a man disfigured by life, cursed with a limp arm -- was given through the bite of the vampire the amazing gift of song, and also intimate knowledge of the lyrics to "Come Sail Away," "Desperado" and "Moon Dance."

And who could forget the lovely queen? She was a humble woman plucked from the audience, but within moments of her stepping on the stage, all of us in the room knew that the centuries-long search was over. As we took a collective breath, we inched forward in our seats to see the dramatic conclusion. Again, the web site:

QUEEN. She is a mortal woman that is chosen by the Lord to be his Queen. She must be stunningly beautiful, have an amazing hard body and be willing to live immortal. Once bitten, her innocence is forever lost.

But as in all great romances, there must be struggle -- for at first the Queen resisted the mighty Lord's advances. He pulled out all the romantic stops to woo her -- playing the piano, having his six topless sex slaves dance for her -- and yet she was still hesitant. But love would prevail! After the male ribbon-climbing vampire (apparently ungrateful for his awesome new abs and abilities) tried to steal the Queen and usurp the throne of the Lord Vampire (to the tune of "Fight For Your Right to Party"), the Queen finally realized the depth of the Lord's passion as he fought for her. And she rewarded this love with the most compassionate gesture know to man: she took her top off. And I swear to you, the crowd, or at least one guy with a mullet near the front, gave a heartwarming cheer.

Sadly, at this point, the Erotic Angels of Rock no longer showed their boobs for the remainder of the show, probably because of something in the Queen's contract. And so I tuned out a little bit. But then the show was over.

There is nothing I did not like about this show, from the total lack of dialog, to the set which appeared to be made from papier mache, to the excellent use of the song "Lady" by Styx. The universal themes of vampirism and toplessness united the crowd -- I could not help but feel kinship with the Mexican couples at my table who sat stoic and expressionless throughout, transfixed by the life-changing show before them.

To those of you who say that the theater arts are dead, I say unto you: you must go to the Stratosphere hotel in Las Vegas, and go see "Bite." The show is at 10:30. Dark Thursdays.