Death of a Comedian, Cthulhu Surprise, and Yet Even More Oscar Ruminations
Mitch Hedberg died on this day in 2005. His jokes ring through my head over and over, not unlike religious texts. Man, twenty years... if he would have written one joke a week since then, that's a thousand jokes we missed. It's like Martin Scorsese said about Stanley Kubrick though - we have no option but to be satisfied with what we were given.
To pick just one:
"I write jokes for a living, I sit at my hotel at night, I think of something that's funny, then I go get a pen and I write it down. Or if the pen is too far away, I have to convince myself that what I thought of ain't funny."
OK, two more.
"I had a stick of CareFree gum, but it didn't work. I felt pretty good while I was blowing that bubble, but as soon as the gum lost its flavor, I was back to pondering my mortality."
"I got some tartar control toothpaste. I still got tartar, but that shit's under control." (I love that this BuzzFeed list leaves out the rest of that joke... "I got so much tartar, I don't have to dip my fish sticks in shit! That's actually kind of gross. After that joke, I have to clarify that I'm just joking. I do not know how much tartar I actually have. I believe it's the average amount. If we all took a tartar test right now, my name would be right in the fucking middle.")
Fun fact- Mitch's pen of choice was the Uni-ball Gel Impact. Mitch had good taste in pens!
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It drives me bananas that some people I won't mention are saying that Will Smith's outburst perpetuates the stereotype of the Angry Black Man. Sure, maybe to nitwits. These same people should hold their patron saint John Wayne to the same standard when he had to be held back by six security guards from attacking Sasheen Littlefeather. She was asked by Marlon Brando to deliver his speech after his Best Actor win for The Godfather, to raise awareness that Native Americans should be treated with dignity, not dehumanized. Are John Wayne and Will Smith's actions representative of their races? No. Are their actions representative of humanity? Of course.
Besides, was Chris Rock's restraint representative of his race? What if he followed Will Smith's lead and escalated the whole thing? He should be given an honorary Oscar next year.
The people pressing the absurd stereotype are the same ones who would like to remember Malcolm X and forget Martin Luther King. Why remember the firebrand and forget the symbol of peace and restraint?
Nothing is quite so black and white though. To illustrate, Denzel Washington played Malcolm X, and offered advice in the moment to Will Smith. Malcolm was not only a firebrand, he came to know peace. Martin Luther King was a philanderer. Walt Whitman said, "Do I contradict myself, very well, then I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes."
True for individuals, and the same goes for the human race. It's a complicated world.
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Does Will Smith deserves to be canceled? (To put it in the vernacular of the peasantry.) Chris Rock talks a lot about the evils of cancel culture. How does feel right now? I love that he's kept quiet. He doesn't owe anybody a statement. His brother said he has not reconciled with Will.
It certainly doesn't help Will's case that he went out partying all night in the immediate aftermath. What a bizarre thing to do! And then offering a polished apology like 12 hours later?
Did you know Chris has a standup show tonight? I can't stand the anticipation. I have no doubt that in this moment, Chris is working on perhaps the greatest stand-up routine in the history of stand up, perhaps rivaling Tig Notaro's show where she revealed her cancer diagnosis, and how God never gives you more than you can handle. Make it pay-per-view!
This is how I'd like to see things go down afterward. Chris Rock sues Will Smith for $20 million, the Wild Wild West $20 million that Chris joked about Will not deserving, when he hosted the Oscars in 2016. That only seems fair.
Chris can then donate it to an anti-violence nonprofit, host the 2023 Oscars, opening with a half hour roast of Will Smith who is restrained front-and-center, Hannibal Lector-style, forced to take any insult thrown at him.
In the end Chris tells him he screwed up, and he screwed up big, but nobody should be defined by their worst moment. (Well maybe Manson and Harvey Weinstein.) We all contain multitudes, we've all screwed up. He gets a clean slate, like some murderer who spent 50 years in prison working on community projects. Everybody is on the murderer's side in that case. He has served his time and is free live his life. And that guy murdered someone! A murder has to be a million times worse than a slap.
Hmmm, that weak apology written by his publicist though, that bugs me... and it came out like an hour after the Academy said they are investigating. And any kind of violence is not that easily forgivable, certainly not in a day or two.
On Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee, Jerry Seinfeld asked Chris who he admires, and Chris said he admires people who have breakdowns, because afterward it's a clean slate. Could that play into how he processes this?
Perhaps somehow Chris could replace the cancel culture he hates, ushering in a new paradigm of perspective culture? I don't know what he's going to do, but I'll tell you one thing. Right now he's sitting on a gold mine.
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Lady Gaga- what a paragon of virtue seeing her take care of Liza Minnelli. An example to follow. It was like she was the godmother of Hollywood.
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And I need to end on a gripe, I can't help it. What was up with that garbage In Memoriam? No Norm MacDonald? It's not like he was a movie star, but he also sort of was. I watch the Oscars for the In Memoriam, and what I did not want was a cheery, upbeat rendition of Spirit in the Sky. Were we supposed to be happy that all these people were gone? Apparently.
March 30, 2022
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John Cleese- "While a huge tragedy is unfolding in Ukraine, Donald Trump asks for a political favour from the war criminal orchestrating the tragedy. And 30% 0f Americans still support him."
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Are you thinking it? I'm thinking it, but I'm not going to say it.
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All right, I'm getting the second vaccine shot tomorrow and I'm still convinced that the 1 in a million chance of death is worth the risk, especially since that risk drops to 0% with an EpiPen-like injection for anybody showing immediate signs of a bad reaction.
Twenty thousand or so died within the three weeks since I got my first injection, and the vaccine drops the risk of dying of Covid down to near-zero, on the off-chance you get it. But yep, people are still hesitant.
One in six hundred or so have died nationwide since this began. It's amusing to imagine one in six hundred who decide to enter the ocean getting eaten by sharks, and people still charging in screaming "FREEDOM!!!"
Sure, there would be a lot of alternative explanations for the red waves crashing on the beach, none based on fact, and some people would even conjecture that sharks were coming on land and killing the beach-goers.
Another metaphor?
If someone was going to shoot you unless you played Russian roulette with a gun with no bullets, would you play? Would you play if instead they threatened to kill a loved one with certain pre-existing conditions?
I don't know about you, but I will take any no-risk bet when my life is on the line, and the lives of those I love, and those I like, and casual acquaintances, and those I never met, and those I don't like, and even those who deserve to get it, if that can be said of anybody, since those who may deserve to get it end up infecting those who don't.
If I choose to not get the vaccine tomorrow, catch Covid, and start a chain reaction of 100 links where the person at the end dies, do I share a hundredth of the responsibility for that death? Or do I own 100% of the responsibility because it wouldn't have happened without me?
Few of us have done the absolute best we could have done, I know I haven't, but the vaccine is a huge leap toward sitting out these ethical games.
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Wow, Robert Reich on Trump/Russia/Ukraine from July 2016- before the election, three years before Trump was impeached in part over Ukraine, and six years before Putin's invasion.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid032vdKWfSUN8KPFv43tDE1TUWSGnQPFrsr5vysvU6CQiWMkUEieGGnVCt1gf6anSJTl&id=142474049098533&sfnsn=mo&mibextid=6aamW6
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Thanks to Cosmos for reminding me that we never really see the moon, we see it as it was one second ago... that's when the light reflected off of it reaches us. So I suppose this computer screen is slightly in the past too, and my fingertips.
March 30, 2014
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Eric Holtry- Newspaper told me yesterday that getting one extra hour of sleep a night equates in terms of 'general happiness and satisfaction' to a $60,000 salary increase. That pencils out to $164 per extra hour of sleep. So rest up homies.
March 30, 2014
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Emma- "3-30-2013: Entirely of his own volition, Benjamin Frederick Kreider buys fancy scented hand soaps in fresh citrus and lavender chamomile."
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"These are the facts, my friend, and I must have faith in them," wrote Cicero. Do we need to have faith in facts? When something is true, faith is unnecessary. Or what am I missing?
March 30, 2011
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I don't feel any of the guilt normally attached to "plagiarism," which seems to me organically connected to creativity itself.
March 30, 2011
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Picasso said, "Art is not truth; art is the lie that enables us to recognize the truth." A lot can be said about him, but one thing that can't be said is that he didn't know how to use a semi-colon.
March 30, 2011
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On this day in 1867, Alaska was purchased from Russia for two cents an acre.
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On this day in 1999, Fabio killed a goose with his face, on the maiden voyage of a new roller coaster. True story.
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Trump, on this day in 2016, giving advice to a college crowd:
"You’ll find that when you become very successful, the people that you will like best are the people that are less successful than you, because when you go to a table you can tell them all of these wonderful stories, and they’ll sit back and listen. Does that make sense to you? OK? Always be around unsuccessful people because everybody will respect you. Do you understand that?"
FDR had a different take:
"I'm not the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick smart colleagues."
https://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/03/trump-advice-wisconsin-college-students-221383
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Maimonides joined us on this day in 1165. "It is better to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent one to death."
I always wonder what the right number is!
Trump was just indicted today. No need to lose sleep ruminating on that guy's guilt!
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MC Hammer was born on this day in 1962. Know how he got his nickname Hammer? He was a bad boy for the Oakland A's in the '70s, and they said he looked like Hammerin' Hank Aaron. And he did!
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Grapefruit-smoosher James Cagney died on this day in 1986. He said, “Outside of my family, the prime concern of my life has been nature and its order, and how we have been savagely altering that order."
He also said, “You dirty, double-crossing rat.”
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Red Hickey died this day too, in 2006. He was a football player and coach, but I only bring it up because his name was Red Hickey.
You know who died on this day in 1952? You guessed it, Bhutanese King Jigme Wangchuck.
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Vincent Van Gogh was born on this day in 1853. "Painting is a faith, and it imposes the duty to disregard public opinion.” That's a great lesson. If you're doing something you love, disregard public opinion. Maybe that doesn't hold true for pedophiles.
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Sonny boy Williamson was born this day in 1914. Willie Dixon said of him, "Sonny Boy Williamson was a beautiful guy, but he was always raising hell one way or another, so you never could tell if he was drunk or sober."
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Paul Reiser was born on this day in 1956. He was part of the New York stand-up scene in the mid-70s. What a place to be! He said:
"The first time I tried to put a new diaper on my baby, I yanked the little Velcro strap too jerkily and actually punched the little guy in the jaw. A real solid shot, too. I knew instinctively that this could not be correct. Unless you're specifically trying to raise a welterweight, continual deliverance of powerful uppercuts is not advised when handling newborns."
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Another notable birthday- Warren Beatty (1937)
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Another notable deathday- G. Gordon Liddy (2021)
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H.P. Lovecraft's sketch of Cthulhu sitting on a toilet. I mean, I heard that everybody poops, but this is getting kind of ridiculous.
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The Onion- Scientists Successfully Teach Gorilla It Will Die Someday
http://www.theonion.com/video/scientists-successfully-teach-gorilla-it-will-die,17165/
March 30, 2010
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Oh man, I totally forgot how much this Jamba Juice girl loves Ryan! I think there could be an entire sociology class taught on this voicemail going wrong.
https://youtu.be/6yMiOTxidFs
March 30, 2011
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Gems.
Huffington Post- 14 Mitch Hedberg Jokes For Everyday Situations
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/29/mitch-hedberg-jokes-for-everyday-situations-photos_n_1386293.html
March 30, 2012
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Jesus Shaves (The Meaning of Easter) by David Sedaris
https://youtu.be/N5apZmwR9UI
March 30, 2013
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Cracked- 4 legendary pranks pulled off by celebrities
http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-legendary-pranks-pulled-off-by-celebrities
Good pranks!
4. Brad Pitt Convinces His Friends Y2K Is Real
3. Daniel Radcliffe Wears the Same Outfit for Five Months to Annoy the Paparazzi
2. Keith Moon Lived Inside a Monty Python Episode
1. George Clooney Throws a Fake Wedding for Brad Pitt
March 30, 2014
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Ben Kreider wrote on Emma Eck's timeline.
Gretel said that you explained to her why we're not supposed to litter... because it might get in some water, and a duck might think it's a jellyfish, and the duck might eat it, and the litter might get stuck in its throat and kill it. The sentiment is right, but but there's one particular detail that seems a bit off.
March 30, 2019
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PBS- You may not believe the Mueller report no matter what it says
"Based on the latest neuroscience research, political affiliations have a measurable effect on human cognition — that is, these ideologies warp everyone’s ability to weigh information that is presented to them. That’s because tribalism is one of the strongest motivators for human behavior. We derive pleasure and social capital from being members of a clique, and consequently, our minds exert tremendous energy to signal our beliefs to those who might agree with us."
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/you-may-not-believe-the-mueller-report-no-matter-what-it-says
March 30, 2019
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For Emma- he's feeling much better now. John Astin was born on this day in 1930. Still alive at 93 years old.
https://youtu.be/M8KdtJOCzOU
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Ping pong genius.
https://fb.watch/jAEHoD-8z3/?mibextid=6aamW6
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Helen Keller- "A well-educated mind will always have more questions than answers."
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From The Bad Seed- "Well I'll be a middle-aged mongoloid from Memphis."
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David Shields- "I don't feel any of the guilt normally attached to "plagiarism," which seems to me organically connected to creativity itself."
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David Lynch- “I don’t think that people accept the fact that life doesn’t make sense. I think it makes people terribly uncomfortable.”
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Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion- "Do not indoctrinate your children. Teach them how to think for themselves, how to evaluate evidence, and how to disagree with you."
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Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass:
I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain’d, I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition, They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth."
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Tennessee Williams, The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore- "We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it."
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John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces- "I recommend Batman especially, for he tends to transcend the abysmal society in which he's found himself. His morality is rather rigid, also. I rather respect Batman."
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Daniel Dennett- "You don't get to advertise all the good that your religion does without first scrupulously subtracting all the harm it does and considering seriously the question of whether some other religion, or no religion at all, does better."
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Dumb Short Joke of the Day:
My friend asked me to help him round up his 37 sheep. I said "40".
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