About a year an a half ago, I decided to expand my "I Take Requests" show outside of DC. I set up a date at the Hamilton Arts Collective in Baltimore. I was pumped.
And then the venue shut down for about a year, to make some building upgrades. BUT THEY'RE BACK, BABY! And so am I. "I Take Requests" comes to Baltimore on Saturday, September 12 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $10.
If you want to find out more about the venue (and you should!) go visit hamiltonarts.org.
Movie Review: The Hurt Locker
The opening epigraph to "The Hurt Locker" says something about war being addictive, and then the next two hours the movie studies what that means. It follows a bomb tech squad in Iraq in 2004, but unlike most recent war movies, it isn't "about" Iraq -- there isn't a bunch of hamfisted moralizing and grandstanding. It's about the bomb techs, how they react under the stress of their job and the toll that job takes on them.
I don't know if it's 100 percent accurate, but it is very gripping. A lot of recent action movies have no sence of space -- quick cuts, closeups and jerky camerawork mean you never have any concept of the physical positioning of assailants or the actual environment they're moving in. (Every chase in "Quantum of Solace," for example, is just awful.) "Hurt Locker" doesn't have much in the way of fast-paced action, but the setting for each call they go out on (defusing unexploded ordinance, IEDs, car bombs) sets up some serious tension -- in Baghdad, they have rubble and blind alleys and balconies all around; people watching who could be innocents or terrorists with remote detonators; and a million places for enemies to hide or attack from. The pacing is close to real time. It's really, really well done.
And it's open-ended. You get to see the characters strain and crack a bit, but I don't think you get steered to a specific conclusion, which I like. Each of the three guys on the squad has his own issues, and at the end, they aren't really resolved. It's a character study, mostly.
Highly recommended, and I'll be shocked if this isn't one of the 10 best picture nominations this year.
Greetings from scenic Blacksburg! Scenic, if you consider cows scenery. Just finished a fine show to a packed house here (it's a standing Wednesday show that has been running for five years, and it's very good). Then tomorrow it's off to Lynchburg. It's a Klan family vacation itinerary! Dad, how to we get to Lynchburg? Well son, we have to stop in Blackburg first!
Yikes. Actually, to get to Blacksburg from DC, I had to drive I-81, just days after reading that article about it being a death trap. Double yikes. And over the years I've definitely seen a few flipped over tractor trailers on the I-81 medians. Triple yikes. Oh, and there was a massive thunderstorm! Jinkies.
Driving is not always fun, is what I'm getting at, and I made sure to cram some good times into the journey by stopping to hike along the way (pre-thunderstorm). I hopped of the highway to hell at Woodstock, Va., and about 20 minutes later I was chugging along a fire road wishing for the sweet embrace of I-81. FDR 252 is not wide enough for two cars, but if you drive on the middle, it's so steeped that the bottom of a compact car will scrape the ground. Remember, if my car is destroyed, I basically have to quit comedy, so it makes moments like that so much more special.
But I did make it to a locked gate on said fire road, where I had to abandon the car and go by foot to the trailhead a mile away. Then it was 7 miles of George Washington National Forest. SHIRTLESS!
That's right, shirtless. I am generally against male toplessness. Most of the people practicing it in are doing it just to show off, and as someone with the definition of a laundry bag, I don't need to see your pecs. But the thing is, I've been running a lot in the humidity the last few days. And I sweat a lot into my shirts. Which become heavy and clingy.
My nipples are chafed, is what I'm getting at, and so I spent most of my time in the woods jiggling for nature's benefit. The positive side: any bear encountering me in that condition would be blinded by the glare and forced to retreat. The negative side: with no shirt to sop up the sweat, all the sweat off my staypuftian torso when right down to my shorts, which absorbed it a spreading pattern, to the point where it looked like I had peed myself. Anyone coming down the trail the other way would have seen a very pale, doughy, red-faced 6'1" man with apparent bladder problems, breathing heavily, sweating heavily and wearing a t-shirt on his head.
Thank god no one uses our national forests. Way to stay indoors, America!
Intensive Dungeons and Dragons studies, with lab. Students are introduced to the lore, character creation process and tactical theory of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, with four-hour gaming sessions twice a week. Miniature painting is mandatory, as is playing Magic: The Gathering at lunch.
Literary Magazine Production. Students are trained in 5-year-out-of-date desktop publishing software and encouraged to spend hours scrutinizing high school poetry and short stories as though they were Pulitzer submissions. Berets are provided.
Beginning Marching Band. Mandatory enrollment of the student in marching band or color guard, with a minimum of 12 hours a week of rehearsals, plus weekend competitions and parades through the height of the high school social season. Photos of the student in uniform will be hung in the hallway outside the school's music room, which is distressingly close to the main hallway.
Shopping at TJ Maxx. All the student's clothing will be purchased for them exclusively at TJ Maxx, for the minimum.
Taking the student to a "Dr. Who" convention at the age of 8.
Cash Money
If you bought a fuel-efficient car when lots of people were buying SUVs they probably didn't need, you don't qualify for government bucks under "cash for clunkers." If you paid your mortgage on a regular basis (maybe because you weren't speculating), you don't really get much in the way of housing help from the federales. If you make a responsible decision to not have kids that you can't afford, and then you hold a job to provide health insurance and food for those kids, you have less chance of getting government assistance for anything. Oh, but you still have to pay alot of taxes, while the people who do get that assistance (not that they're bad, some people just suffer from crappy circumstances) often don't have to pay taxes.
One of the great disadvantages of being president is that sometimes, when you want to get away from your giant taxpayer-funded mansion, your private mansion on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere just isn't private enough. We've all been there.
Thomas Jefferson's brilliant solution was Poplar Forest, a quaint little home nestled away on 4,000 acres just outside Lynchburg. A sweet little place where he could escape a few times year and relax: just Tom, his grandchildren, and 50 to 70 slaves. Cozy!
TJ came into the property through marriage, the way we all aspire to become rich, and it was one of his choicer financial assets: he needed the income from that plantation so that he was only severely crippled by the debt racked up his other plantation. And privacy? You bet! He had used the place as getway in the past -- he stayed there when the British tried to capture him at Monticello during the Revolution (he was the governor of Virginia, and apparently the British didn't have the military intelligence to find out where his OTHER huge plantation was) -- but during his second term as president he actually got down to business and started work on this fine little structure:
It's like a mini-Monticello, a vanity project that actually turned out to be ... well, sort of nifty. Because it's an OCTAGON. Jefferson toyed with getting octagons into Monticello, settling for some half-octagons on the wings and an octagonal dome chamber up top. But at Poplar Forest, freed from the demands of polite society, he was able to finally make an octagonal home that could properly harness the the dark energies of the hoary netherworld. And when the eighth son of an eighth son stands under the dining room skylight under a full moon on August 8, and makes some disparaging remarks about John Adams, then LO, THE PROPHECY SHALL BE COMPLE ...
Whoops. Can't give away the secret. Or take pictures of the inside. Their rules. Sorry.
The house is in the Palladian villa style -- a big, 20x20 square dining room in the center with huge high ceilings, surrounded by four octagonal rooms and a few more corner spaces to round out the exterior octagon. That should be enough octagons, right? Right?
WRONG! That's one of the crappers, and it's octagonal, because Jefferson wanted you to know how clever he was, even when you were taking a dump. But oddly enough, for all the intriguing flourishes (and the big honking dining room), Poplar Forest wasn't really a public, showy place. There are just two bedrooms, so he wasn't packing in the guests. Jefferson built Poplar Forest for Jefferson, and to me, that makes it neat.
He started building the place in his 60s. He had decades of experience messing around (and screwing up) with other projects, so he knew what worked (the wing of dependencies on one side of the house and the half-sunken basement are a straight lift from Monticello). He didn't have to satisfy the demands of public use or plantation culture. Basically, he had fun with it. Following all the big rules of the Palladian style, he was still able to cherrypick his favorite elements from all kinds of sources, and the result seems quirky, cozy and suprisingly modern. After a lifetime of studying architecture, managing construction projects and touring the gardens of England and France, this is what one of the best minds in American history came up with. That's worth seeing.
And even without furnishings or decoration (they're in the process of undoing 150 years of changes from various private owners), you can get a definite idea of Jefferson's personality. Obviously, he valued privacy. But beyond that, consider the back yard: to suit his design, he needed a sunken yard allowing access to the basement rooms and the dependencies. But rather than pick a hillside to build into (and they have them on the property), he paid slaves extra to dig out the whole yard in their spare time.
It took a few years. The guy wanted things the way he wanted them, and despite being almost famously practical, he'd ignore sane impulses to get what he wanted. Plus he bought almost everything on credit! And maybe, just maybe, that makes him the most American president of all. USA! USA! USA!
POPLAR FOREST FACTS!
Most of the property was sold at the time of Jefferson's death to help repay his crushing debts, which might have been party caused by BUILDING TWO FANCY HOUSES IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE AT THE SAME TIME. I mean, duh.
The dining room table was octagonal, and Jefferson would insist on eight-course meals off eight-sided plates, with prayers to the Spider Queen Loth between each course.
As a fan of the "lazy susan," Jefferson had several tables with rotating tops at Poplar Forest. This inspired one woman on my tour to let us know that Jefferson had INVENTED the lazy susan, giving me instant PTSD flashbacks to a Mount Vernon tour where someone insisted Jefferson had invented the mimeograph in Washington's office. Contrary to popular belief, Jefferson was not an inventor. He made some kind of plow, and that's about it. He borrowed lots of ideas from other people, in everything from architecture to the Declaration of Independence. His skill was as an aggregator and presenter of knowledge, and in the traditional sense he was not a brilliant creative mind. To sum up, SHUT IT, lazy susan lady.
Jefferson hated staircases, and included them in his designs only when attempts to breed a race of wall-climbing slaves failed.
In honor of my 7-year comedy anniversary, some advice to myself
OK, you. Knowing this stuff won't make things any easier, but it's still important stuff to know, so listen up. Here we go:
From a business standpoint, marketability is more important than being funny. This does not mean that all successful people aren't funny -- being good at your job is always a marketable trait. But people in charge of talent agencies and television networks aren't like German barons on an altruistic mission to underwrite true genius. You are evaluated as a means to earn other people money.
In the current entertainment climate, that usually means filling a market niche. It takes time and money to build someone up to a national audience, but it's much easier to market an entertainer to a narrow segment of the population that readily "identifies" with whateverqualities they might have. In a lot of cases, that's a nakedly cynical marketing effort based on race, youth, gender, drug use or politics. You can question the
wisdom, fairness or artistic merit of this situation, but showbusiness is about making money. Mid-level or generic talent with marketability is more valuable, businesswise, than hard-to-categorize brilliance. (They might polish up the mid-level talent and CALL it brilliance in the commercials, but that's part of the marketing, see.)
If you're marketable, you have a good shot at success; you might obsess over the nature of funny, but most audiences are thrilled just to see someone who looks or acts like they do. If you're marketable AND you're really funny, you'll probably do great. If you're just really funny, it's going to be much harder. You'll have to market yourself, but remember ...
The Internet can be a mirage. With YouTube and MySpace, it was a nice thought a few years ago that you could "beat the system" and become a star while sitting in your bedroom. Guess again! You might be able to reach a broader audience via the Internet, but since there are no barriers to entry, so can everyone else. You will be drowned out. There is the elusive potential of a "viral" outbreak, but Web users are swamped with tons of mediocrity and people treat the content as disposable. Why shouldn't they? It's free!
There will be exceptions to this rule, but in general, the Web (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, etc.) is just one of the marketing tools you will be using. Your best bet is still gathering info (e-mail addresses) from fans at live appearances, and then turning those people into your unpaid army of press agents as they forward your content out their friends.
Also, it was nice to think that the Web was going to make geography irrelevant -- basically, New York and L.A. wouldn't matter anymore, since "the industry" could see anyone, anywhere. Well, no. TV stuff and management stuff are still centered in New York and L.A., and when "the industry" uses the Internet, it's as a way to compile free (to them) content that they can repackage and distribute. And remember -- most people seem to get jobs in showbusiness through their friends. One person gets a break, then they drag along the people they hang around with. If you aren't in the Big Two, you probably aren't hanging around on a social basis with the lucky bastard who gets the break. You can develop greatness from anywhere in the country, but proximity to lucky bastards matters. Next issue ...
The "Big Deals" aren't always that big. There were stories from a decade ago about people doing "New Faces" at the Montreal Comedy Festival, then coming off stage to find executives waiting with development deals in hand. Because they had a good 7-minute set! Festivals and contests are important and good, for sure, but it's not quite like the fabled days of yore. None of that stuff is a guarantee of future success, as you can see from, oh, the list of people who have been in festivals or won contests, and then had nothing happen.
Same deal with TV shows. They're important. It's better to have TV credits than not. But be realistic about it. Being on Carson's "Tonight Show" meant a huge swath of America was watching you. Being on "Premium Blend" or "Live at Gotham" means that a few thousand people are seeing you. Plus, hundreds of people have been on those shows by now -- it's not exactly a distinguished credit. Even if you were on "Late Night," the number of people staying up to see the comedian at 1:27 a.m. isn't phenomenal. TV is something to strive for; it certainly is a huge tool for helping people succeed. But it's not some golden ticket to instant, massive success. Big "gets" are worth pursuing, but don't be all crestfallen and mopey if they don't materialize. You have other options. And try not to complain too much, because ...
Complaining doesn't help you. Showbusiness is awful. Hilarious people can work their butts off and go nowhere, while someone's pot connection gets booked as part of a 24-city tour. You'll sometimes see people spend years working on material and consistency and presentation, and then they'll be judged and dismisssed based on a 2-minute audition (while a person with exactly 2 minutes of material gets to emcee that 24-city tour). For every nice, genuine person who succeeds, there are 10 nice people who don't, and 15 unhealthy jerks who get their own episode of "Comedy Central Presents." A lot of managers are swindling comics and clubs (while pretending to help them!), some bookers are really bad at "smart" booking, few people seem to have long-term vision for cultivating new talent, and sycophants with no serious future in the business suck up a LOT of the work -- and in doing so drive down the prices the serious people can ask. But it was probably that way in the 1960s, too. It's not changing. So stop worrying about it.
OK, me. Big finish. The point of all this advice sn't to make you sour, or to make you feel justified. The point is, think about how you want to define success. Success should probably be defined only as making people laugh. If you make fame and fortune the measuring sticks, then there's about a 95 percent chance that you're going to fall short. You might never get the recognition you think you deserve from "the industry," but you can always know that you're good at what you do if the audiences seem to leave happy. If you can be satisfied just knowing that you're very good at what you do, and take the neat opportunities and lucky breaks as a bonus ...
It's not the easiest mental trick to pull off, but it's worth the effort.
Sketch Artists
In the last few years, I feel like I've seen a lot of trans-genred comedy. Meaning: sketch comedy trapped in a stand-up routine. Stand-up can definitely be used to paint elaborate, whimsical scenarios (my stand-up hero, Woody Allen, was great at this, and many of his routines were translated into movie scenes). But that's very hard to do well. I feel like many people come up with neat sketch concepts, but it's hard to get a sketch troupe together or film a video, so instead the concepts just become rambling, abstract routines. More power to you if you make it work, but "abstract" and "stand-up" aren't always a match made in heaven. Sketch (which can be great in its own right) sometimes lacks the personal touch that makes stand-up distinctive and cool.
If you enjoyed the Comedy Central Roast of Joan Rivers ... guess what? I've actually interviewed two of the roasters. Click on over to The Podcast Page and you can download MP3 interviews with both Jeffrey Ross and Greg Giraldo. Neat, huh?
Monday: Songs You Should Know
I have the absolute best musical taste: that of a 50-year-old black man. It would be criminal if I did not share it with you. So for the next few Mondays, I'm going to tell you about some songs you should definitely know.
First up: "I'll See You When I Get There," by Lou Rawls. A man who has had a rough day borrows some change to call home, so he can see how his lady is doing. He hopes she's doing good, because his plans involve getting busy all night long, and quite frankly if she had a headache or anything along those lines, it would put a damper on those plans. Don't get me wrong -- he'd still probably gut busy all night long, but it would just be way more pleasant for everyone if she's had a good day.
It's classy! Lou Rawls always sounds classy. In fact, I'm pretty sure that Lou Rawls could sing a song about beating a hooker to death with a phone book and make it sound classy. He might even be able to make a classy audio recording in which he ACTUALLY beats a hooker to death with a phone book and doesn't sing at all. Live performance is below, but do yourself a favor and get the radio version on iTunes.
Here's a friendly reminder that we're rapidly approaching the performance of myself and my good buddy Jared Stern at the black box theater in Indian Head, Maryland. I had a blast there back in February and I'm really looking forward to the return visit. Should be a fine night of stand-up for all in attendance. Get on it, folks! The show is Saturday night at 8, and tickets are a mere $10 -- if you're in Charles County, do yourself a favor and snag some seats.
Los Presidentes
Here's some mildly exciting news! I'm awaiting final confirmation and details and that sort of thing, but it looks like I will be writing a column about the American Presidents for McSweeney's. I hope to answer many important questions, such as "Is it OK to dunk on the president" and "was Thomas Jefferson actually a jerk?" The plan is to do a lot of good. If you have any general inquiries about the American presidents, be sure to send them to chris@dcstandup.com -- I'm happy to entertain them.
It is with great sadness that report the demise of a dear friend, one who spent countless hours in the last six years pressed against my sweaty butt.
My exercise bike has died. When I walked into that fitness store, I was a shambles. I had been through three bikes in two months, each one falling apart under high expectations and shoddy craftsmanship. "I just want a bike that will last two years," I said, and the salesman smirked. "It'll last two years," he said. And now, six years later, I know that he was right.
We rode 15,000 miles together without ever leaving my bedroom. We read many magazines together, we did crossword puzzles together on Sunday mornings. He was also a drying rack for things that I had sweat on. I still remember making phone calls to people while I biked. "Why are you panting?" they would ask. "None of your business," I would reply. Then the calls would end sort of quickly.
The world was a better place with my exercise bike in it, as anyone who has seen my rock-hard calves and muscular thighs can attest. Though jogging had slowly intruded on our time together, he did not once complain, perhaps because he was an inanimate object with no mouth or consciousness. But he was a fine bike, and he will be missed.
But on the other hand, what a pain in the *** bulk trash is, huh?
New Podcast: Will Durst
Will is one of the top political satirists in America today. He's got a one-man show over at the DC Improv Lounge this weekend (dcimprov.com) and he has some interesting things to say about political comedy -- whether it's tougher these days, who "gets" it and a bunch of other fun stuff. Go get it, tiger! Here's the podcast page. And we'll have a new podcast on Friday, as I talk to Michael McDonald of "Mad TV" fame.
Trust me: you really, really want to go to Indian Head black box this Saturday to see me and Jared Stern bring the thunder. NOT ONLY will you see great stand-up AND two excellent examples of oozing machismo, but you will see the WORLD PREMIERE of a brand new video featuring me, Jared, and a bunch of guilt. It's top-notch.
If you need MORE convincing, here's one of our older projects ... one of my personal favorites. Short, and the profantiy is bleeped -- safe for work!
Youth is Served
As we get older, we all must deal with the bitter resentment of people younger than us having great success. Case in point, the 28-year-old editor of Washingtonian magazine.
I guess he's smart, but if you click through you'll see this quote: "This is the golden age of Washington, the most exciting time in the city's history. It's exciting to be a part of that."
Please bear in mind that, in several instances, large portions of Washington have been ON FIRE. I guess we all have our own definitions of "exciting."
Without Representation
I am OK with living in the District of Columbia. I do not care that I have no voting representative in Congress.
But I CANNOT tolerate not having a town hall meeting where I can yell my theories about health care. I have spent a lot of time coming up with some very thoughtful criticisms, and how to express those criticisms in rhyming couplets.
Being a misinformed, loud crank is what America is all about.
Hey champs! Happy Monday. A very happy Monday, in fact, because we are now just a week or so away from the onslaught of the "I Take Requests" Summer Tour 2009!
With the addition of the DC Arts Center on September 26, that makes FIVE stops total. I have my new projector, my new screen, some new jokes, and a smile -- so I'm ready to do this. If you're anywhere near these shows, please come on out for the good times. At $10 I really do believe it's a bargain. I'm biased, but still.
Thank You Indian Head
And before I forget -- thanks to the people who came out to see me and Jared Stern perform at the Indian Head black box theater. It's such a fun venue, and it sure seemed that the people in attendance left happy. Hopefully I'll be back there in some capacity when the winter rolls around.
Los Presidentes
Also important to mention: in my new capacity as a presidents columnist for McSweeney's, I have to kick up my research a notch ... in the next few weeks, as part of my touring I plan to see the Theodore Roosevelt inauguration site (Buffalo), Franklin Pierce's digs (Concord, NH), Calvin Coolidge sites (Plymouth, VT), and time-permitting the "birthplace" of Chester A. Arthur (almost Canada).
I put birthplace in quotes because there's no official record of Arthur's birth, and some people do believe he was born in Canada. And yet the republic survived ...
You may recall last week that my exercise bike died. So yesterday I gave it the usual treatment for dead things: I dismembered it and spread the body parts around town.
FUN! The whole thing is too big for regular garbage. I could take off the seat, the console and the pedals and get them in the regular garbage, but the main body and some of the big metal pieces weren't going to fly with DC garbage men. So I threw them in my trunk and cruised up around Catholic University for my first ever visit to a TRANSFER STATION! YEAH!
It's not exactly clear what's being transferred, aside from a wealth of diseases and probably the urge to vomit. But after a rigorous screening (a guy asking for my ID, then waving me through before I dug it out so he could ask his co-worker to get him a soda), I was in. You just pull up to the big pile of trash, open your trunk and start heavin'! Then guys with those cool, giant scoop trucks take your mess and ... uh ... move it to another pile.
Always the keen shopper, I kept my eyes open for serviceable garbage, but sadly there were no moldy children's toys or slightly chipped dishware. But then again, I was there half an hour after opening. I bet you gotta get there right as the gates open to get the good stuff.
The one big question I had as I left is how employees deal with the smell. Do the nerve endings in your nose just give up and die as a means of self-preservation? Or do you spend every day feeling like everyone you know farted at the same time? The world needs to know.
Here it is! From Anne and Steve Zweidler came the suggestion for "Bad Breath." I like a few of these jokes ... the video is a little iffy, because of one group of chattering ladies in the middle of the room, but in general I'm on board with this stuff. Enjoy!
The concern going into August's trivia contest is that we wouldn't have enough seats. A company organizing a night out with the co-workers made a reservation for 30, which is something like half the capacity of the DC Improv Lounge. Guess how many people showed up on that reservation? Go ahead, guess. I'll wait.
[Whistling, twiddling thumbs.]
TWELVE. Ish. Fortunately, the brilliant Allyson Jaffe anticipates these sorts of things, so we had overbooked the room and got a few people on stand-by. It's like college admissions! Only no one has to sleep in a motel near campus for the first semester. The concern once everyone was seated was a group of middle-aged women there for a friend's birthday. If you've been on the town much, then you know that the absolute WORST groups to deal with are "girls night out." They're like the Borg: insanely destructive and able to completely ignore everything that isn't directly related to what they want. You know how serial killers are crazy, but the few women serial killers are crap-on-the-walls crazy? Same thing. These ladies were bad. They were throwing lollipops at people and they wouldn't shut up.
So I think it's a true testament to the awesome power of trivia that we still had a great night. Round one was "Caesar Augustus" -- questions on famous Caesars or the month of August. "Points for Clunkers" had teams trying to match car models to car makes (and it featured one goof by me -- I did not realize that the Spider is both a Fiat AND an Alfa Romeo, after Fiat bought Alfa Romeo). "Uhnalohgeez," our video round, had people completing sets of picture analogies: Kyra Sedgwick is to Kevin Bacon as Andrea Mitchell is to ... ? And we finished off with "Cool It," which was standard Q&A about cold things.
The Four King Idiots (9 people) won the day, with 34 out of 44. The Boozers, The Dining Room Tables and First Line of Haiku were deadlocked at 27, so after a tie-breaker knocked out the Haikus, it was a dance-off. And an epic one at that! So good, in fact, that we made a 2nd-place tie and gave the Haikus third. If you want to see it, here's the Facebook link. Your teams in order of finish:
Bored on a Friday? Here's some fun with the Internets.
From one of my former co-workers and her husband (they are now regulars at Happy Hour Triva), comes the Hottest Heads of State blog. A ranking of 170 or so heads of state by raw sex appeal, and every few days they do a profile of someone on the list.
Amigo Seth passes along American Polymath, and like Seth, I don't know that I understand it all. The introduction is also really snotty. But there are some interesting article in there if you click around.
And trivia fans will enjoy Sporcle. Quizzes? Oh yeah.
You'd be hard-pressed to call any movie relationship genuine, but I think "(500) Days of Summer" comes close. It's not meant as a happy story, really, but as the evolution of something simple to one person and complicated to the other -- exactly the kind of thing a lot of people have stumbled through in their 20s. There's lots of posturing about the nature and possibilities of love, but when theory meets practice everyone gets lost in a muddle.
There's a boy who believes he's found the one girl the universe has created for him, only the girl, for whatever reason, doesn't believe in love and does not want commitment. She's happy to enjoy a companionship beyond friendship (she has a hint of crazy in her, enough to believe that it's all OK), and he's enamored enough to try to convert her on the fly.
The whole thing is strangely honest, with great flashes of humor and not too much self-importance. I'd put it in a category with "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind": a fun way of telling a common story, without any trite bludgeoning.
I'd highly recommend it. For the Hall and Oates dance number alone.
Songs You Should Know: "Me and Mrs. Jones."
It's Monday! And I actually remembered this time, so here's a second installment of Songs You Should Know. The original, and best, version of this song was recorded by Billy Paul. You've definitely heard this. It's about a guy meeting a married woman at a cafe and how they can't seem to break things off, what with the loving being so good.
I don't know what was in the water in the '70s, but I'd estimate that about 45 percent of the hits from that era were about people having extramarital affairs that were BLOWING THEIR MINDS. Collectively, it's a great sales pitch for adultery, as many of the people singing cannot sleep, eat, operate heavy machinery or bear to be around their children, such is the compelling nature of the sweet, forbidden loving. So, was pop culture driving the trend, or responding to it?
If you answered "Who cares? I just have to have it. Damn," then you're in the right place! Download this song, learn it by heart, and then go to a karaoke night. Find a couple sitting somewhere in the room that you do not know, then when you get up to sing, do the the whole song staring at the woman. Never break eye contact. If you are a guy, you will get a good story out of this. If you are a girl, you will get a REALLY good story out of this.
Pittsburgh!
Hello from Pittsburgh! I am in this fine city for some leisure, meaning my brother scored Pirates/Phillies tickets for Tuesday. Sure, I miss the 80 percent humidity and 90 degree heat of Washington, but you have to go where the team is. We all make sacrifices, and this is mine.
People of the upstate New York area: here's your big chance! Tomorrow night I will be kicking off my "I Take Requests" tour at the Stone Mill in Little Falls. It's a fine evening that involves stand-up, videos, trivia and a little bit of singing as well. Good times are guaranteed. You can get tickets online (links through the Stone Mill site), and they're just $10.
I will also be available to high-five anyone who wants it after the show.
Movie Review: District 9
"District 9" is about a South African middle manager who enjoys aborting alien babies, but then learns some important lessons about respecting intelligent life, regardless of the package it comes in. He expresses his newfound knowledge with a gun that turns people into small chunks of meat, instantly.
It's very good, and I'd probably like it even better if I had grown up in apartheid South Africa and all the movie's themes could truly resonate with me. As it was, toward the end I was mostly wondering why we don't have more splatter guns as a means to solve the world's problems.
The only drawback: the horrible, slanderous portrayal of Nigerian crimelords. I think Nigerian crimelords have suffered enough at the hands of Hollywood, and it's about time we stopped painting their rape, murder and extortion with such broad strokes. SHAME ON YOU HOLLYWOOD! SHAME!
Just kidding. Nigerian crimelords are total jerks.
Showbusiness!
Say someone is a really good painter, so they go on tour, charging $30 a head ... so people can hear them sing. Does that sound dumb to you? Then you don't understand the stand-up comedy business, my friend!
People of the Boston area: gird your loins! Mottley's Comedy Club is home to "I Take Requests" on Thursday night. For just $12, you get stand-up, videos, trivia and some other kinds of entertainment (no live nudity, sorry). It's gonna be a gas.
Even if you aren't in the Boston area, you probably know people who are -- if you can spread the word, I'd be in your debt.
Also, I will be happy to sign your cast after the show. If you don't have a cast, this gives you one extra day to break a limb. HUSTLE!
New Video: Thomas Jefferson ...
In the continuing White History Project, I educate America about some of its most important figures ... enjoy this fine presentation on the architecture of Thomas Jefferson, and what it says about him.
Hey folks -- just saying hello. So far the "I Take Requests" summer mini-tour is going great. I've seen some friends, taken in some sites and had two good shows. I'll have some photos and a full report when I get the chance to sit down and really hammer it out, I promise.
In the meantime: this SATURDAY, I close out my week with a visit to the Valley Players Theater in Waitsfield, Vermont. Come see me dazzle the crowd for the low low price of just $10! You can get the venue info at the Valley Players web site. The show starts at 8 -- we'll see you there!
Legal Stuff: If you have questions about this Web site, why? You should spend your time questioning the moral nature of any god who would let Chris White exist. But anyhow ... copyright 2009, Chris White Sucks Inc.
Hey champs! Happy Monday. A very happy Monday, in fact, because we are now just a week or so away from the onslaught of the "I Take Requests" Summer Tour 2009!
August 2009: Jefferson.
Fall 2009: comic interviews on the podcast. 
