April Fools!

Happy April Fools Day! Not everyone is prank-minded, so here a few easy jokes you can play on the people in your life. Especially kids -- they're stupid!

Phoney Funnies. Call a loved one using a cell phone, from an outdoor location. Ask them about their day. After they get exactly five sentences in, say, "Yeah, yeah ... look, I need $25,000. I'm desperate." When they ask why you need the money, say, "I don't know how to ... OH GOD!" Then hang up. Don't answer your phone again until April 2! Hee hee!

School Daze. Offer to drive your child, or the child of a friend, to school. Instead, drop the kid off at a Greyhound bus terminal, with a ticket to any municipality with a thriving gambling industry. When people ask about the whereabouts of the child, say, "I hope it's not the horses again." Then sigh and get very quiet.

Sweet Tooth. Have a dinner party. For dessert, promise a "big surprise." Then stall a very long time after dinner. Once people start asking about dessert, throw your hands up and yell, "FINE! You want the surprise? Jimmy is gay!" This works best if you have a friend named Jimmy at the dinner.

Say Your Prayers. Solemnly inform your significant other than you've had an "awakening." Ask them to put on a "purity hood" and share your new vision; then hand them a dirty burlap bag. If they put on the hood, smack them on the butt, laugh and them tell them there is no god. If they refuse to put on the hood, they do not love you.

Chubby Chaser. Over a period of three months, gradually hem or take in every article of cloting in a loved one's outfit. Whenever they ask if they seem to be getting larger, insist that they're crazy and they still look great. Finally, after three months, gather all their friends and associatiates, and have an intervention about their "exploding weight." "I was just being nice," you can begin. "You're hideous."

Surprise! Tell a young child repeatedly over the course of many years that hard work is always rewarded, that good things happen to good people and women love nice guys. After 30 years they'll get the joke.

Hostage Situations

Through a series of wacky life events and various odd circumstances, I am now the owner four black duffel bags. Yes, FOUR black duffel bags. If you have any need to pay a ransom at a bus station locker, please keep me in mind!

Tags: jokes

Mark and Ted's Excellent Adventure

Intriguing story out of DC as the U.S. hopes to drop all charges against Sen. Ted Stevens and then decline to retry the case. Not that Ted didn't do something wrong, but the government prosecutors crapped all over the process, repeatedly, and the judge, who even acknowledged what a crappy job the prosecutors were doing during the trial, let things proceed.

It's intriguing because Stevens, the longest-serving Republican senator in U.S. history, just barely lost his re-election bid -- even after he had already been convicted. Mark Begich, the guy who beat him, didn't do anything wrong, but his whole standing in Congress is now basically a sham, right? He'd have lost without that conviction. So Alaska trades a senator with oodles of seniority and plum committee assignments for a hamstrung political eunuch. Nobody wins.

There's only one way to settle this fairly: ALASKA STYLE! Erect a 10-foot razor-wire fence around the Capitol reflecting pool. Fill the pool with crude oil and two angry polar bears. Put both Stevens and Begich in the pool, armed with ice axes. Each man can also have one handpicked associate in a circling helicopter, firing rifles loaded with beanbag rounds. The last man breathing represents Alaska.

The best justice is frontier justice.

G-20 Unit

Also in the news, nice to see shots of the Obamas in London today, where the royal family no doubt regaled them with stories of the times they hunted Africans for sport. We've come a long way, baby.

Job Creation

My latest brilliant economic recovery plan: recently laid-off people are hired by the government and organized into a mobile strike force. Anytime there is public anger about a corporate indiscretion, the strike force is flown in to lynch or otherwise mob the executives in question.

These ideas are free, America.

Tags: politics

Boy, is he strict

In my quest to become a better citizen, I thought I'd read a little more about my city's government. Here's a quote from the page of my Ward 6 City Councilman, Tommy Wells:

"Tommy's commitment to improving our city is matched by his enthusiasm for developing innovative solutions to stubborn problems. He consistently looks beyond traditional programs to find creative ways to get results -- often with limited resources. Tommy has brought ground-breaking approaches to public school policy, with a focus on parental accountability. After discovering that one-third of DCPS students lacked immunizations that are legally required to start school, Tommy created an enforcement policy that ensures that 100 percent of our students are fully immunized at the start of each school year. When he learned that a murdered youth from Sursum Corda had not attended school in weeks, he devised and won approval for a policy that cut the truancy rate for elementary school-aged children in half."

Remember, always get a note.

New Podcast: Christian Finnegan

I had a fine time on Thursday morning talking to Christian Finnegan, who I have a lot in common with: middle child, pudgy child, the name Christian, Catholic ... he was actually on a writing deadline, but still was kind enough to chat for a whopping 41 minutes. And it's not a flabby 41 minutes either. He's clearly a guy who thinks a lot about the process of comedy and the sort of things the set people on the path to showbusiness. If you're a comedy fan, don't be intimidated by the run time -- it flows very well.

As always, you shoud really just subscribe via iTunes, but if you INSIST, you can download it at the podcast home page.

Smile Though Your Heart is Breaking

I don't watch TV news except when I'm at my part-time job, and because that job involves reading, the sound is always off. That's when you really notice that Lester Holt is always smiling.

He can't help it. It's the default position for his face. When he's talking about the latest YouTube puppy video, it's fine. When he's anchoring a segment on child molesters, it's not as great. Same thing for Campbell Brown. When Natasha Richardson died it looked like she was devoting 90 percent of her energy to keeping the corners of her mouth down.

I've never heard Roland Martin's voice, but judging from his eyes he seems to be tired or high at all times.

And CNN Headline News clearly lost some kind of class-action suit filed by ugly people for employment discrimination.

That is all.

Tags: politics

Different Package

Here's one for the bookmarks ... my brother Dave's new Web comic, Different Package. Dave's a fine artist with an excellent sense of humor and I fully advocate you checking his web site every day and also sending him money on a regular basis.

Fans with excellent memories will recall Sarah Pleninthal from "The Japanese Beetle," on which I collaborated with my brother back in the day, before I got into stand-up. He was very nice to put up with my overly wordy dialog while at the same time putting in the Herculean effort of drawing a comic strip five times a week. I've worked with quite a few comic strip artists throughout my adult life, and it's a really cool medium. There are so many constraints to deal with, not to mention the challenge of structuring and delivering a joke in within those constraints. It takes real talent to do it well, and I admire Dave's work a ton.

Tags: art

Phillies Fever

Happy baseball season! For those of you who missed it, last night the Phillies and Braves kicked off baseball season 2009. Or, to be more accurate, the Braves kicked it off at around 8, and then the Phillies showed up at around 10:30, which is to say the Phillies lost and looked to be in mid-season slump form right out of the gates. I was really worried that having my team win the World Series would somehow make it harder to be a fan, but the grim acceptance of inevitable loss was established in my childhood, and so it is forever imprinted in my brain. I'm OK with an 0-1 start! On the other hand, if you are a Yankees fan who was, oh, 7 years old right around 1998, your life will be mired in crushing disappointment most years. HAH!

I decided to honor the sacred event with a baseball-themed party, which included baseball-centric food: Hot dogs, bratwursts, italian sausages, peanuts, cracker jacks, soft pretzels. Fact A: I have a problem at parties, whereby I have an oral fixation. I have to be eating or drinking something at all times. You can trick yourself into just having water for four hours, but as a genius, I find it hard to outsmart myself.

Fact B: Somewhere along the line, it was impressed upon me that there is no worse sin than throwing a party where the food runs out. This is probably an Irish fear going back to the potato famine. Everyone's sitting around drinking, the food runs out, and they say, "screw this, I'm finding a new party," and they leave to find new friends in another country. A plus B equals me projecting my eating abilities onto every confirmed guest, plus I count on a few unannounced drop-ins. And then I go food shopping.

What I'm getting at is, if we're friends and you want to have hot dogs and brownies for dinner every night this week, stop on by the house. There's extra beer and everything.

Basic Korean for Barbershops

These are common phrases that you can use to instruct the Korean lady cutting your hair. As you are a beginning Korean speaker, I will list each phrase phonetically, as the English phrase it most resembles.

Hello! Translation: "You are weak, you foolish serpent, and I do not fear you. If you find this phrase insulting, why not do something about it, huh?"

I'd like it fairly short. Translation: "I really admire people in the military. Their sacrifice is truly noble and I don't know that I would ever have the courage or strength to serve in that capacity. But maybe, just maybe, I can show my appreciation for their hard work by getting my hair removed almost to my scalp. Kind of like them! But not all the way, because I don't want to insult them by implying that I am in any way military material. So, maybe a 'three weeks out from chemo' look."

Yes it is (in response to "your hair is thick"). Translation: "If you could use thinning shears until my pearly white scalp is visible from any angle, that would be delightful."

I don't want my hair to stick up. Translation: "Cut my hair so that it sticks up."

No bangs. Translation: "Please pick up that trimmer right there, slap on a No. 3 attachment and start going to town on my entire head, including the top, where there are no bangs, before I can figure out how to communicate in a more direct fashion."

Straight across the neck. Translation: "Straight across the neck."

Thank you. Translation: "I see now that there was a price for my arrogance, and I commend you for at least making my presentable. You are merciful. I thank you for helping me grow as a person here's $12 for the haircut. And that extra $5 is for you. Please forgive me."

Tags: karaoke

Dear Internet People...

... I don't care about your video blog. All the required attention of television without the production values or editing? Bleh. Lo siento.

Paula Deen ...

... has to be about 80 percent butter, right? And I just saw an add where she was selling ham. There's no way she can be living without at least eight stents spread throughout her body. If she lives through the year I'm taking that as confirmation that she's a robot operated by the international fat cartels.

Turbo Tax

My 2008 taxes are done! I do my own taxes, and as my financial empire grows, things get a little trickier each year. For example, this is the first time I've ever had capital gains, and after a careful study of Schedule D, I owe 43 chickens and a bolt of denim. That sounds steep, but with the savings I get from being my own accountant, I can hack it.

There's still a week left, and if you want me to do your taxes I'm available. The fee is three bushels of corn.

Tags: taxes

New Podcast: Aisha Tyler

I had a good time chatting with Aisha, who against all reason is a 6-foot-tall, beautiful black nerd. You don't see that combo very often.

You might know her from any number of things -- she was the only black person to ever appear on "Friends," she screwed over Curtis in season 4 of "24," she hosted "The Fifth Wheel" and "Talk Soup." Plus she just had her stand-up special debut on Comedy Central in February. All that, and she can still use a word like "abattoir" without blushing, and she plays a lot of video games ... like I said, a very unusual mix.

Here's the podcast page. Download, listen, and enjoy! Next week, Bobby Slayton ...

The Children Are Our Future

1. Jogging on Tuesday, I saw ahead of me two kids, maybe 11 or 12 years old, on the same bike. One kid was holding a skateboard and sitting on the back of the bike, the other kid was pedaling, and having a hard time getting the bike going. As I approached them, I made no eye contact, said nothing, and in fact did not change my pace or direction at all. As I passed them, still minding my own business, the pudgy kid pedaling yells at me: "What are you laughing at, fat boy?"

2. This morning, I awoke to the sound of squealing brakes on the street out front. A group of jaywalking elementary school students (headed to the school across from my house) stepped out from behind a parked car and caused a driver to slam on the brakes. When the driver rolled down her window to tell them to be more careful, one of the kids, still in the middle of the street, yelled at her: "F*** you, bitch!" I've seen similar incidents about seven times before.

Beat your kids, America. As much as the law will allow.

Tags: podcast

Which moronic Facebook quiz are you?

Always wondered which Facebook quiz most captures the essence of your personality? Take this quiz and find out for sure!

1) When you walk into a room, people feel

a) revulsion

b) annoyance

c) vague displeasure at the cosmic forces that permit your continued existence

d) complete indifference

e) as though you are an unproductive boil on the butt of humanity

2) Your idea of relaxing is

a) crying silently into a childhood blanket remnant

b) kickin' it at a house party where you constantly encourage your friends to waste work hours doing something with no ultimate personal or revealing value

c) filling out quizzes

d) doing enough recreational drugs to actually imagine what it would be like if you were something non-human, like a country or soft drink

e) desperately seeking human connection

3) You are happiest when you are in

a) your house

b) the 17th century

c) a thong

d) the cross hairs of a sniper scope

e) love with the great taste of cheese

4) Of all the monotremes, you most identify with

a) the platypus

b) the short-beaked echidna

c) the western long-beaked echidna

d) Sir David's long-beaked echidna

e) the eastern long-beaked echidna

5) If someone kidnapped your mother, then called you and demanded $1 million upon pain of her death, you would say

a) "Please take this number off your calling list."

b) "Maybe you would lighten up if you just knew which Snork you most resembled."

c) "Very funny, dad."

d) "As someone who is similar to a certain world leader or celebrity, I say to you this shall not stand."

e) "Please, don't hang up. I am so, so bored."

---

Scoring: Each A = 1.3 points; B = 2.1 points; C = negative 0.3 points; D = 6 points; E = punch yourself in the throat.

---

Negative 1.5 - 2 points: You are "Which member of Sly and the Family Stone are you?" Your proclivity to strain relationships, anger partners and lecture on current events helps everyone around you gauge whether they're a Sylvester, a Larry, a Cynthia or a Jerry.

3 points: You are "Which notorious serial rapist/murderer are you?" After a few minutes at a cocktail party, anyone you've chatted up should have a bead on whether they prefer the seduction of Ted Bundy or the brute force of Jeffrey Dahmer, as they are likely speculating on ways to kill you.

4-5.7 points: You are "Which county in eastern Kentucky should I live in?" Maybe it's your looks, maybe it's your breath, maybe it's your endless yammering ... but something about you makes people want to figure out a remote, impoverished spot where Internet access is hard to come by and you are unlikely to visit.

5.8 - 7.3 points: You are "What kind of cheese would I most want to choke to death on?" Reinforcing the triumph of banality, you force the people in your life to confront the the utter worthlessness of the human endeavor. Unable to comprehend any meaning, they glassily speculate on a mindless consumption binge followed by a brutish death via chesse. Gouda? Havarti? Colby Jack? Cheddar? You hold the answers!

7.4 points or more: You are "Which moronic Facebook quiz are you?" Your arrogance and contempt for the status quo make you insufferable, but the people around you are bored enough to hang out with you, down to the last bitter line.

Tags: facebook

Movie Review: Duplicity

Much like the last movie I saw starring Julia Roberts and Clive Owen ("Closer"), no one in "Duplicity" is really on a fundamental level a good person. They're all petty, horrible and selfish, to the point where they're willing to defraud a company out of millions and ruin the lives of thousands of shareholders. But they're good looking!

The basic idea: Clive and Julia are spies. The first time they met, they "bopped," as the kids say, and then Julia drugged Clive and stole some secrets from him. This is a huge turn-on for Clive, so they develop a relationship that involves meeting every few months, having intractable arguments, and then getting past those problems by doing it for about 24 hours straight. Then they part company. In essence, it is the perfect relationship.

They decide to get involved in corporate espionage, thinking they'll steal $40 million, as this will allow them their richly deserved retirement, at age 40, to an Italian luxury hotel. They take jobs at rival companies trying to steal eachother's secrets, and then a bunch of confusing stuff happens, punctuated by Clive and Julia occasionally sneaking off to have PG-13 sexual escapades.

It's a pretty snappy, well-produced movie, but it's all story and no character. As I mentioned, even though the movie clips along a cheerful pace, the stars are all pretty despicable at heart. By the time you figure out who screwed who, it's not so much a revelation as just a tidy, neat resolution to a very convoluted story. There's not much emotional investment.

Probably the best thing in the movie is a fight, shot entirely in slow motion, between the two CEOs (Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti). It plays during the opening credits. I think I'd recommend the movie based on that scene alone, but beyond that it's not exactly hilarious or moving. Scads more sophisticated than a lot of what's out there, true, but it probably could have had a bit more sizzle. They had the ingredients.

Tags: movies

Crime and Punishment

Washington has by conservative counts 342,000 world class museums that, thanks to your tax dollars, are completely free to people like me who actually live here and can enjoy them. Thanks for subsidizing my weekends!

So when people visit Washington, they naturally head straight to the Spy Museum, which costs about $20 to get in. I scoff at these people, and I would never join them. Or more to the point, the attempts of my brother, buddy Mike and me to join them last Saturday were unsuccessful, since there was a three hour wait just to get in.

Fortunately, there's ANOTHER $20 museum just blocks away! It's the Crime and Punishment museum, and it has no real reason to be in Washington, other than to snap up all the people who didn't want to wait on a sidewalk to see spy stuff.

It's not bad! There's a linear display, starting with crime, then moving on to policework, then punishment, then the ultimate expression of justice (the giftshop). There's LOTS of reading, on everything from Caribbean piracy to the fun things you can find with luminol, and a few interactive displays where you get to shoot people. By being that broad, they're able to squeeze in some neat artifacts; basically, if a serial killer sneezed on a Denny's placemat, then that Denny's placemat is automatically cool. A few notes:

They have the Tennessee state electric chair, or "Old Smokey," in which 125 people died. The best part: it was constructed with wood made from the Tennessee state gallows. Which was made from the Tennessee state head-crushing log. Which was grown in the Tennessee state haunted forest of death. It's a spooky chair, is what I'm getting at.

The small display on medieval torture devices was appreciated, but maybe a bit sanitized. If you're ever in Prague, be sure to stop by the torture museum to get a real appreciation for how great humanity is. I'd estimate that at least half the things on display in Prague are designed for insertion into one of two specific orifices, then tampering with said orifices. I can see the logic behind the death penatly NOT being a deterrent, because once you're dead, your problems have a way of stopping. But I'm pretty sure if we tossed the Eighth Amendment and went medieval on ... well, you get the picture. There would be less crime, is all.

A very interesting display highlights artwork done by prisoners. The best one is "Baseball Hall of Fame," which includes the Major League Baseball Logo and 46 astonishing, supposedly authentic signatures from Richard Nixon, Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, Duke Snider and more. Apparently no one knew it had been painted by John Wayne Gacy, the clown killer.

Fun fact from the museum: The polygraph was perfected by the same guy who invented "Wonder Woman" (and her lasso of truth!). Fun fact from my brother and Mike: Wonder Woman was based on the polyamorous lover that guy shared with his wife. Whenever possible, go to a museum with my brother.

The absolute highlight: near the end there's an interactive display where you train a light gun at a criminal holding a gun at the head of a subway station manager. Only when the video crook points his weapon at you can you open fire, and your shots register as green spots on the screen. The 50something lady playing the game when we walked past unloaded about 15 rounds into the video's crotch, with extreme prejudice.

Tags: museums

Play Ball

Only 155 games left ... sigh ...

I got to enjoy the Nationals' home opener Monday, and by "enjoy" I mean they were playing the Phillies. The game kicked off on a strange note, as the P.A. announcer told us that Harry Kalas had died. He was calling games for the Phils before I was born. Half the big memories I have of the Phillies, I can remember how Harry called the play. He'd slowed down a bit in recent years, and if you listened to the radio broadcasts lately you'd only hear him in the fourth inning. But the guy was a presence -- there aren't too many cogs in the Phillies machine that were there for both World Championships, but Harry was.

And from that cheery note, PLAY BALL!

The most excitement from the crowd probably came during the national anthem, when four helicopters approached the stadium; I think about half the crowd figured that Obama was going to land on the field and throw out the first pitch (it was just the D.C. National Guard doing a flyover). Never mind that this would have been a security risk, a safety risk, something that might have ruined the infield and also the biggest d*** move in the history of first pitches, since it would have been followed by Obama leaving right after in the same helicopter. THE PEOPLE DEMAND OBAMA! You're a pretty popular dude when people are sincerely hoping you'll drop out of the sky for two minutes.

The most excitement for me came during a Shane Victorino home run, as this marked the big league debut of my No. 8 jersey (thoughtfully provided as a gift by my girlfriend). I've never been a jersey-wearing guy. I didn't own any as a kid, but I did gather from going to games in Philadelphia that wearing the visiting team's jersey was frowned upon, to the point where hitting the wearer in the head with a battery or small piece of masonry is acceptable. But apparently not every city has these hang-ups, so on Monday I suited up! I am now one step closer to my dream of sneaking on to the field during batting practice in my Shane Victorino disguise. The only hitch for now is that Shane is slightly darker than me, but considering that I got sunburned sitting in partial shade during a somewhat overcast 60 degree day, I think I can catch up.

Phils win 9-8, but I will say this for the Nats: Elijah Dukes hit a home run to left field on a swing that looked like me at a batting cage. If he had enough power to golf the ball out ... yikes. Between him and Dunn they're going to score a lot more runs this year. Their pitching is so awful that it won't matter, but the casual fan is going to enjoy 9-8 games a lot more than 7-3. Get thee to the ballpark, and quick.

Also, I still think that "Red Porch" sounds like a sequestered pavilion for menstruating women.

Tags: baseball

New Podcast: Bobby Slayton

Bobby, aka "The Pitbull of Comedy," was ranked at No. 80 on Comedy Central's "100 Greatest Comics" list. I actually worked with him a few years ago in Baltimore, and it's almost impossible not to be impressed by what he does -- it's really raw, really offensive (if you're thin-skinned), and really fast. If you see his show night after night, you pick up that there are set pieces and standard jokes, but he moves so quickly and so seamlessly that it's mindblowing. He gets away with ten things a show that most people couldn't do in a million years.

He does get a little raw in the interview, so don't listen at work. Here's the podcast page.

Tags: podcast

Get Off My Lawn

This was a momentous weekend for me, as I am now going through the great change in life. Hormones and age have finally caught up to me, and I now a set forth on the magical journey that takes me from young to crotchety. (adj. -- having the properties of a crotch)

After a rough show Friday night, I came home, sat on the couch and went to sleep around 1:30 a.m. I woke up at 8 a.m Saturday to the sound of dogs trying to rape eachother, or bite eachother's genitals off, or whatever it is dogs are actually doing when we kid ourselves into thinking that they are "playing." This noise was coming from the baseball/soccer field across the street from my house, where about six dog owners were standing around sipping Starbucks coffee while their dogs cavorted in ways that would make a war crimes tribunal blush.

I do not think that field is a dog park, because very few youth recreation leagues would want their kids sliding around on the remaining traces of dog expulsions, and also also because in more than eight years living here I've never seen it used as such. There are also three different dog parks within a mile of my house, although I do sympathize that going to such parks would entail the awful burden of walking your dog.

I was very tired, and so I tried to go back to sleep, but the all-dog reimagining of "The Accused" continued. At around 8:15 I tried to muffle my head with a pillow. At 8:30, I debated going outside to yell, but do I want the people in my neighborhood to think of me as the guy who goes outside in an undershirt, wearing socks with sandals, to yell? I'm only 32. At 8:45, I picked up the phone to call the police and tell them that there was a noise problem, or that a child pornography ring was meeting across the street, whatever would get them there faster. But I also didn't want to be the guy who calls the cops right out of the gate, because then it's just a short leap to listening to a police scanner while drinking PBR on your front porch and glaring at anyone who gets within 30 feet of your parked car.

So at 8:50, I discovered that I was in fact the guy I didn't want to be 8:30. I threw on sandals, shuffled across the street, and then shouted loud enough to be heard over dog "Caligula" that I didn't want to be a jerk, but it wasn't even 9 a.m., and the dogs were really loud.

I got a shrug and a "sorry" from one person that didn't quite qualify as sheepish. Then they stood around for another 10 minutes.

And so next time it's straight to the cops! Also, I'm in the market for a weatherbeaten lawn chair and a garden hose to turn on surly teens. If you have any extras please let me know.

Tags: aging

CSI: Lincoln

Long before Fidel Castro and the Freemasons joined forces to assassinate President Kennedy, or railroad exectives and the Freemasons joined forces to off McKinley, or Lucretia Garfield, her lover, Chester A. Arthur and the Freemasons took down Garfield, there was a conspiracy most foul to take out Lincoln!

On Saturday my roommate and I enjoyed history in its purest form: the walking tour with a guide in period costume. Short of the time machine, that's as good as it gets, and even then I'm not sure that 1865 police detectives would have quite the sense of humor as our tour guide. The whole thing started outside Ford's Theater, with an account of the assassination of Lincoln. Then it followed the 1865 investigation, as cops tried to nail down who was responsible, who had helped them and whether the whole dirty business was linked to a simultaneous attack on the secretary of State. And the Freemasons.

They didn't have luminol back then, so investigating mostly involved talking to people and hanging around horse stables. That was suprisingly enough to determine that there was a conspiracy, and that it consisted of the 1865 equivalent of Brad Pitt and a bunch of drunk wackadoos. Yet they somehow managed to kill one of the greatest presidents in American history. It was a simpler time!

The overall plan was to simultaneously kill a bunch of high-ranking officials in an unprecedented act of terrorism, thereby spreading panic and possibly relaunching the recently ended Civil War. Lincoln got capped; Secretary of State Seward was sliced up pretty badly by a potential assassin, and his son's head was bashed in; an attempt on Andrew Johnson failed when his assigned attacker lost his nerve and fled, though Johnson had security-free quarters in a Washington hotel (there were no undisclosed locations in 1865). In fact, almost everyone had laughable security back then; Booth got access to Linclon more or less by asking for it (he was famous) and Seward's attacker just pretended to have a pacakge of medicine to help the secretary get over the flu. Contrast that with the seven cavity searches you must now undergo to by a magnet at the White House gift shop. It was a simpler time!

Booth left a trail a mile wide, and though he managed his initial escape, he more or less hung his comrades out to dry by giving the police so much to work with. The tour takes you through a bit of downtown DC, past where Booth's hotel would have been, past were other conspirators would have been boarding, past the telegraph office ... every place that would have figured pretty prominently in the investigation and Booth's escape. Our guide (Kip) was great -- well informed, engaging, etc. Plus he recognized me as a comedian, which automatically increases my estimation tenfold.

The investigation is pretty fascinating -- not just the police procedure, but how pedestrian the masterminds were. It's like if a bunch of angry internet blog commenters decided to kill the president, which is probably why their plot only succeeded in part, and also why they were all rounded up in pretty short order. It only takes a few lone crazies with determination to change the course of history (with Garfield and McKinley there wasn't even a conspiracy). For all tragedy of these events, the miracle is that it doesn't happen all the time. Huh.

Tags: presidents

Triva Strikes Back

Last night was Happy Hour Trivia at the Improv Lounge, and here's your recap ...

HHT perfection is unattainable, but one team made a run at it this month. "Peri Peri Disappointed" opened with perfect scores in the first round (naming movies based on soundtrack songs) and the second round ("April in Paris," about ... uh, April and Paris). They couldn't keep up that blistering pace for rounds three and four (a video round of naming "Great Depressions," then questions based on "Take Me Out to the Ballgame"), but their final score of 40 out of 47 was enough for first place. "Splinter Group" (one of our resident Yelp! teams) tallied a 37 for second, and "The Four King Idiots" came in third with 34.

Here they are in order of finish!

Happy Anniversary!

The next trivia night, May 20, we'll be celebrating one year of Happy Hour Trivia. Be there!

Tags: trivia

Book Review: Eisenhower: Soldier and President

Stephen Ambrose, now dead, apparently took to the grave a massive man-crush on Dwight D. Eisenhower, judging from the repeated insistence throughout this book that Eisenhower was stunningly handsome. This is problematic, because the cover of the book is Eisenhower looking like Professor Farnsworth from "Futurama."

That disturbing discrepancy aside, this is a pretty decent biography. It steams through DDE's early years: his youth in Kansas, his time at West Point, then the disappointments of missing combat in World War I. Then there's the meat: Eisenhower, at the age of 50 and facing a disappointing retirement, suddenly in charge of Allied efforts in the Western theater. By being a really good administrative guy, he landed what was probably the biggest military logistics assignment in world history. Then he becomes the first NATO commander, a political force despite no one knowing his actual party affiliation (Truman offered to be on a ticket with him) and president.

Basically, life begins at 50, if you spend the first 49 years of your life roaming the globe and doing busy work for famous people. For all his obvious respect for Eisenhower, Ambrose is pretty even-handed; he notes that Eisenhower's calm, measured approach to most crises only worked BECAUSE he was Dwight Eisenhower, one of the most famous and popular men in the world; but he also slams Dwight on the occassions where his lack of leadership might have had awful long-term consequences (mostly civil rights, where DDE sat on his hands and tried not to offend the South, even in the face of virulent and violent racism).

It's a pretty compelling snapshot of 1940s and '50s America, and it's not hard to see the appeal of grandpa-esque authority figure after 20 years of awufulness. It's also interesting to consider the extent of DDE's sacrifices over the years; though he clearly enjoyed his work and thought of himself as a necessary leader, the guy gave up anything resembling a normal existence. He spent years at a time apart from his wife, he never had a real home of his own until his presidency (in Gettysburg) and he really never had much in the way of a retirement after a lifetime of serving his country. It took me about 100 pages to get locked in to Ambrose's narrative style, so I don't think I'd recommend this to a casual reader, but if you have a fixation on presidents, you'll probably enjoy this. Yes, I know that eliminates every reader of this blog except me, but what can you do?

And now, I've read all my Christmas books! And to think, this time it only took me four months. That's slight ahead of last year's 12 months. I get a cookie.

Tags: presidents

Fashion Corner

There's a great scourge sweeping this nation, so let's just get to it: flip-flops.

I enjoy a good flip-flop as much as the next guy. Sometimes I need simple, easy-to-don footwear for emergency tasks, like flipping hot dogs or slipping out the back door to avoid a home-invading serial rapist. But if sand or a body of water large enough to float a cruise ship is not nearby, you shouldn't be wearing flip-flops as a functioning shoe.

And yet every day I walk the streets of this, our nation's capital, I am affronted by seemingly lucid professionals in their 20s and 30s flipping and flopping with abandon. This is surprising, because a) flip-flops are not comfortable for more than a block; b) flip flops expose your feet to the things on a city street, like garbage, and broken glass, and the urine of people who would be thrilled to have a pair of flip-flops to replace their newspaper shoes. If you wear flip flops to a bar, and then go to the bathroom, it's like your feet are having sex with all the stuff that somehow makes its way to the floor of a bar bathroom. And not protected sex -- mistake sex, on dirty sheets that have seen many people since the last washing. If you dipped your feet in luminol at the end of the night you could probably then hang out at Spencer Gifts and ask for tips.

Flip-flops are also your way of saying, "I'm not doing anything fun today!" Consider the things you cannot do in flip-flops. Bowling. Running through a meadow. Rock climbing. Sneaking up on people and then yelling, "I'm pregnant!" When you wear flip-flops, you are making a contract with the universe. If a friend says, "we are going dancing tonight," you have to say, "I can't, I decided to have dirty feet today, and assuming I am a woman, I wanted to make my legs look fat."

It starts with flip-flops. It ends with socialism. Let's get it together, America.

Front Row Center

Get to know your audience! In the front row on Friday (Scranton, Pa.) were two guys who looked like possible convicts. All three comics made light of this, and the guys played along beautifully. Talking with them after the show, it turns out they were ACTUALLY a hostage negotiator and a P.I. who used to work for the federal bureau of prisons. The P.I. revealed that he used to work about five blocks from my house in D.C., and then the negotiator told me stories about the times that hostage-takers killed themselves.

I learned first and foremost not to judge people on appearances. But beyond that: sometimes, you think you're having a bad day at work. But remember, no matter how much your co-workers annoy you, at least no one shot his wife in cold blood and then blew his own brains out while you listened on a walkie-talkie. Now THAT's a case of the Mondays.

Tags: presidents

The First First 100 Days

If you're ever in Scranton for a day, you're just 117 miles from Hyde Park. And if you once drove two hours to see a picnic table honoring Millard Fillmore ...

Touring Springwood, the thought occurs that Franklin Roosevelt might have had slightly more success ending the Great Depression by just giving everyone in America $10,000. Out of his own pockets.

The guy was rich! The kind of rich where you have not just a mansion, but a vacation compound in Canada and a spa in Georgia. And since things are so hectic at your mansion, you decide to build another house on your property, THREE MILES away. And a house for your wife, who was probably a lesbian. Yes, he was Estranged-Lesbian-Wife rich.

The money came from the best source known to man: inheritance. The Hudson Valley Roosevelts had oil money, railroad money and banking money, not to mention a big honkin' farm. And the seafaring Hudson Valley Delanos, who did a lot of business in China, had rice money and opium money. In a worst-case scenario, FDR was going to be a high-functioning society alcoholic; as it turns out, he had some ambition, so he became the most prolific president in American history. And so a visit to Hyde Park really drives home the central contradiction of the FDR years: our leader at the time of our greatest hardship was a guy who never had to worry about finance a day of his life. FDR rewrote the compact between government and citizen even though he couldn't have been further removed from the people he was trying to help.

It's really something. The mansion itself is phenomenal, if not overly extravagant (it's a mere 20,000 square feet, compared with the 50,000 square foot Vanderbilt home up the river). As nice as it is, you can still tell that it's a farmhouse. FDR expanded the home to fit his family, but there's nothing "gilded" about the home; it has a few of the flourishes designed especially to impress guests (you get those same touches in the 18th century Virgina plantations) but it's not lacking in coziness or personality. When you hit the foyer, the walls are covered with nautical prints (entirely FDR's fetish, like in his home at Warm Springs), a cabinet of stuffed birds (taxidermy was a hobby FDR shared with TR) and political cartoons. FDR was proud of his collection of the last item; even though many of the cartoons were anti-British screeds from the war of 1812, he declined to cover them up when entertaining the King of England. Supposedly, after a few minutes of awkward study, the king noted that FDR had a few in his collection that the king himself was missing.

There's a great story to almost every room. The library is where FDR would greet guests, and maintain the charade of his health. (It was common knowledge that he had polio, but not that his legs were basically useless.) He would have guests escorted in to find him seated and cross-legged in the library; before anyone could wonder why he hadn't stood up to greet them, he would charm them into submission. Upstairs, there's the room where he slept as a child, complete with memorabilia from his youth (like the placard from the Harvard Crimson -- college newspaper editors are always destined for greatness, cough cough); the room where he was born; the room where Winston Churchill once took a bubble bath. There's an elevator, so necessary for a crippled man, but oddly enough powered like a dumbwaiter, because of FDR's fear of fire -- he had seen his aunt in flames at a young age after an accident, and as a man of limited mobility he feared having live electricity in his own home. He used his own muscle power to operate the elevator, which explains why most of his 190 pounds was upper-body muscle. Outside is is the long carriageway that he tried to walk every day he was at Springwood; he never made it to the end, but he always tried.

Plus there's the whole family dynamic on display. FDR was a momma's boy, since he was essentially an only child. His mom was half his dad's age, and so Roosevelt's only sibling (a half-brother) was 28 years his senior; his mom doted on him and was technically the owner of his house well into his adulthood; she was basically the mother figure to his kids, since she steamrolled Eleanor at every opportunity.

For that matter, what of Eleanor? You can't really understand FDR without looking at her. In a lot of ways, she seems to be the link that tied FDR to the American people; unable to travel the country with abandon, he left that task to her, and it was her reports of the American condition that so often influenced his positions on social issues or the economy. She was a first lady of almost unprecedented importance, in terms of her national profile, her political influence and her ambition (which was kindled by FDR's own aides). They were estranged (he was bopping her secretary), but respectful and affectionate toward each other; he built her a cottage on their estate where she could relax and get away from the pressures of entertaining in the big mansion. That cottage, called Val-Kill, is just a 3-mile hike from Springwood, and it's the only national historic site for a first lady. It's a home where her personality shines through over FDR's (she lived there until her death in 1962), helping to focus one of the stranger working relationships in presidential history.

And just a mile past that? Top Cottage, FDR's own retreat. It was a small cottage designed by FDR himself to be handicapped-accessible, a home where the "grand deception" could be put to rest. He wanted to retire there (his plan was always to leave Springwood to the governmnet), and in the last years of his life did get some use of the place -- when the king and queen of England visited, he personally drove them to Top Cottage, then treated them to their first ever hot dogs on the porch. History does not often record where world leaders had their first hot dogs, and so I consider Top Cottage to be a sacred place.

There's a lot to ponder about FDR -- he had such a profound impact on the shape of modern American society, our relationship with goverment and international affairs that it's hard to avoid him. He was opportunistic, but compassionate; he had a silver-spoon upbringing, but he suffered enough through his illness that you have to respect his hard work and dedication. As much as he could manipulate and use people, he still trusted and respected Eleanor enough to follow her guidance. He was both a genius and a bully. If you have a day to spend in Hyde Park you can pull together strands from so many phases of his life. It won't give you the answers, but it'll give you something to think about.

Plus there's always the final resting place ... in his mom's rose garden, right next to the house, along with Eleanor and Fala. The marker wasn't supposed to be any bigger than his desk, and considering that the guy already had his own library AND was giving his ancestral home to the government, the whole scene is surprisingly subdued. I guess when the entire country is your memorial, you don't need that much of a marker.

Special thanks to super-guide Valerie (I think it was Valerie; it definitely had a V at the start). She was my tour guide for both Springwood and Val-Kill, and since I wasn't in any kind of rush, I bombarded her with a LOT of questions. She didn't flinch once, because PARK RANGERS KNOW THEIR STUFF. Always pester them. I think they like flexing their muscle. I even got her personal assessment of whether Franklin was a nice guy (for the record, she thought he was genuine in his desire to help people, but his blueblooded willingness to use anyone for any purpose at any time probably put a few people off). And now ... FUN ROOSEVELT FACTS!

• Two ship's cannons (six pounders) are on either side of the door at Springwood; Roosevelt told guests they were there to keep away Republicans. And yet I still made it inside. Suck on THAT, FDR!
• Two of the fireside chats were given from FDR's office in his presidential library, which he had built on his own property during his presidency. The fires were fueled by copies of the constitution and common-sense economics textbooks.
• Most of FDR's wheelchairs were of his own design and consisted of modified kitchen chairs; one included a swiveling ash tray, because you don't need legs to smoke. USA!
• FDR insisted on driving the King and Queen of England to Top Cottage himself in his specially modified Ford; after their hot dog lunch, the queen refused to get back in the car with him, because he drove on the wrong side of the road.
• Top Cottage is the only presidential home other than Monticello designed by a president, unless you also count the pillow forts Lyndon Johnson used to unwind.
• Among gifts in Springwood is a bell from a Buddhist monastery; FDR's mom used it respectfully and with the utmost dignity as a dinner bell. Since all dinners were formal, the first bell was a 30-minute warning; those who were not dressed in time had to eat dinner alone in their rooms, and then would be beaten thoroughly by the servants.
• FDR and Eleanor's five kids ended up having a total of 19 divorces, because none could ever happily recreate the estranged philanderer/lesbian political friendship example of their parents.
• The library has a replica of FDR's White House desk, which was actually the same one he inherited from Hoover. He had a fetish for knick-knacks, including a ceramic rooster, pictures of his kids, and the severed head of Alf Landon. The library also has the family Bible on which FDR was sworn in all four times, which includes the special opium-smuggling cutout.
• FDR contracted polio at age 39 after attending a function at a Boy Scout Camp, and so in 1942 he signed the executive order putting all Boy Scouts of America in internment camps.
• A crazed gunman made an attempt on FDR's life in the first month of his first term; the mayor of Chicago was actually killed in the attack. No joke here. Just crazy to think about close a lone wacko came to fundamentally altering world history. Yikes.

Tags: presidents