Dear Hollywood: Please Quit

I understand adding another installment to the Terminator franchise. I understand making a Star Trek prequel. I even understand making three Star Wars prequels (I just wish they hadn't sucked). These are all popular, long-running franchises with their own mythologies that fans want to see thoroughly explored. What I don't understand is why anyone in his or her right mind would want to remake Footloose:

LOS ANGELES — Chace Crawford is stepping into the starring role in the remake of "Footloose." The "Gossip Girl" actor will reprise the role that made Kevin Bacon a heartthrob back in 1984. Paramount Pictures said Tuesday that Crawford will star as Ren McCormack, the bad boy in a small town who brings everyone together with his daring moves.

And...? What else ya got? Even in 1984 the idea of a sadistic small town where dancing is prohibited was a bit of a stretch. It's twenty-five years later. We are on the verge of legalizing marijuana. We have a black president. A movie about gay cowboys won an Oscar for fuck's sake. How the hell are you going to re-package this turd, set it in a Taliban-controlled Afghani village? Substitute "sexting" for dancing and call it Thumbloose?

Please quit. You've got no moves.

Soy is Good for You

The Porn Again Christians / Soy City Stranglers show last night was a blistering rock extravaganza. I did my ten minutes up front, and as usual with doing comedy at a rock show, most of the crowd stood there and stared with that "Why is this guy who looks like a DEA agent talking to me?" look.

Despite the scarcity of raucous laughter, I still got the flurry of handshakes and compliments afterward and, more importantly, got to see a great show. Comedy and rock is always an odd mix. If you're Doug Stanhope, you can follow an hour of thrash metal and still keep the crowd. If you're not, it can be a challenge to win over a bunch of heavily tattooed Mid-westerners in a rock and roll frame of mind. Especially when there's no stage and the patrons have to walk through the performance area to get to the bathrooms.

As for The Dragon Inn, it's an OK rowdy little rock bar, but if the talent has to pay full price for a Jack and Coke (Four dollars? Really? in Sullivan, IL?), it should look like a Jack and Ginger Ale. Especially if you're going to short the bands on the money at the end of the night because they delivered two and a half hours of great rock and roll instead of two hours and forty-three minutes.

Verbally Vicious

I don't think I've ever witnessed a verbal beat-down on a disruptive audience member like the one Daryl Horner delivered last night at The Little Nugget in Danville, IL. The guy wasn't heckling Daryl, he was arguing with his girl or something, but it was annoying as hell, and even after a rousing chorus of the old "SHUT THE FUCK UP" from the entire audience, he (or they) just would not shut the fuck up. Then Daryl did something I've never personally seen a comic do. He marched into the audience and promised the offender no end of any kind of punishment necessary to silence his drunken, inconsiderate ass. I couldn't begin to reproduce it here, but it will suffice to say that in the end, Daryl won the night.

If you're in the Springfield, IL area, do yourself a favor and check out Daryl and Kevin Craft tomorrow, May 23. I don't know the venue. Look it up. Ask around. If a rock show is what you're looking for, make the short trek to The Dragon Inn in Sullivan, IL - where I stupidly agreed to host The Porn Again Christians, Soy City Stranglers, and Blower (ex-Didjits). It's stupid because The Dragon Inn (I discovered after agreeing to the gig) has no stage, and few things are more awkward than telling jokes to a standing crowd of drunk rock club patrons at eye level. Then again, it could be the greatest, most cathartic ten minutes of all of our lives.

"Isolated Incident"

When I first saw this promo shot for Dane Cook's Isolated Incident, which premiered Sunday night, I thought it was intended to convey an older, wiser, and darker Dane - that he had finally tossed the whole frat boy image. Well, he did, sort of. He was still decked out in tee shirt and jeans, but he was a lot less animated, a lot less loud, and a little darker.

I long ago gave up being a Dane Cook hater. I never liked his act much, and I didn't find this new hour all that great, either, but I've been doing comedy just long enough to realize that the only people who care about a comics' success, relative to every other comic, are other comics (and a small but rabid core of fans who have never done comedy but feel qualified to judge everyone who does).

Try telling one of the millions of Denis Leary fans that a few of his funniest bits on No Cure for Cancer were lifted from Bill Hicks, and the likely response will be, "Who's Bill Hicks?" That's not to say I condone stealing material. I don't - it is the cardinal sin in comedy. But if Dane Cook lifted material from Louis C.K., that's between Dane Cook and Louis C.K. It's not as if I would have headlined The Laugh Factory for a televised special last month if Dane Cook had been exiled from comedy, so what business is it of mine?

If I were forced at gunpoint to bet money on who lifted what from whom in the whole Hicks/Leary debate, yeah, I'd bet the material in question was Hicks', if only because Leary never demonstrated that level of creative genius afterward. But I don't know, and I don't care. To anyone who still cares about this tired debate 18 years after No Cure... and 15 years after Hicks' DEATH, two things:

1. Hicks and Leary worked together. More than once. They did Montreal at the same time. They were also notorious drinkers and inhalers of Peruvian marching powder, so who knows - really - what may have been bandied back and forth between lines gakked up off the back of some green room toilet?
2. Write something that anyone would want to steal, or shut the fuck up. Thanks.

White Trash Wigger Pieces of Shit

So I'm sitting at the bar at Mac's Uptowner here in Charleston. It's near closing, and it's rare that I'm even there that late because I have shit to do (like stalk people on Classmates.com), but I'm with friends and having a good time, so I hang. On top of that, I'm being talked at by a drunk woman who's 21 and 4 days old and hot. Not HOTT hot, but Amish-girl who-snuck-out-of-the-house hot.

Numsayin'?

Then out of nowhere, over her shoulder, I see a white trash wigger piece of shit crack another white trash wigger piece of shit over the head with an MGD Light. Then there's four wiggers brawling, then nine. Then there's an actual black dude (represent!) and a couple white non-wiggers in the fray. Then there's Turk, the 6'5" 300 lb. bouncer from Turkey. Turk not only separates all the white trash piece of shit wiggers but chases the bottle-wielding white trash piece of shit wigger down the street before coming back to mop up. I'm not sure why, exactly, but a Middle-Eastern guy in Charleston, Illinois fucking up out-of-line wiggers is beautiful.

What's not beautiful is white trash wigger pieces of shit fucking up everybody else's good time just because it's Friday and their source got busted on a domestic violence call before the batch was done.

Try This at Home

One of my fondest memories of my dead friend Graham Lewis is sitting around his dining room table with a few guys seeing if we can polish off a bottle of Malort, a wormwood liqueur only available in Chicago. This is the most vile, most disgusting, most ass-tasting alcoholic beverage I've ever sampled. If you want to have some fun with your friends, get a bottle of this for special occasions, assure them this discovery of yours is the greatest thing you've ever had, and pour a round of shots. Just make sure you have a mop handy (and some back-up friends).

Heroes, pt. 7: Michael Phelps

Wow, this guy does it all - wins Olympic gold, smokes Puerto Rican Gold, and bangs bottle blonds who think Condoleeza Rice is a Mexican dish and blame Satan for their stupidity, like Miss USA Carrie Prejean here.

Focus on the Family busted a nut over Prejean when she pandered to conservatives by saying she believed only heterosexuals should have the right to make each other miserable for life. Hardcore Christians love any celebrity who endorses their views, especially when the celebrity looks like a hardcore porn star.

You know what I like most about Phelps, though? Those coke-dealer shades. Righteous.

You Thought Your Gig Was Bad...

My buddy Adam Harris has been interviewing the comics that perform at the Jukebox Comedy Club for the past few months and has some great interviews with Dwight Slade, Robert Schimmel, and many others. In the recent interview, Brett Erickson relates the unbelievable events that went down (and I mean WENT DOWN) there last weekend. A must-listen for comics:

http://comedynerdinterviewscomedians.podbean.com/

Heroes, pt. 6: Patrick Stewart

"Engage."

Heroes, pt. 5: Kiefer Sutherland

Rather than charge Kiefer Sutherland with assault for head-butting fashion designer Jack McCullough, New York City should give Sutherland a parade, a Key to the City, and a lifetime free pass to The Emperor's Club.

The fact McCullough made the claim at all, when all he suffered was a small cut on his face, demonstrates just what a prima donna pussy he is. Why didn't he just punch Kiefer back? Because it would break the line of his jacket? Fashion designers top my personal list of people whose sense of self-importance is inversely proportional to the worth of their efforts. They design unwearable travesties for anorexic European teenagers to display on runways and unaffordable travesties for celebrities to display on red carpets. They are celebrities only to other celebrities, which places them among the most disconnected and frivolous human beings on the planet. They should all be head-butted on principle.

With one exception: Mark Nason, creator of God-like boots for mere mortals. One day, when I have no outstanding bills and $500 to burn, I will own a pair of Mark Nasons, even if only for the stage. Not to mention the fact that not a few women instantaneously shapeshift into sexual animals when in the presence of quality footwear - men's or their own. Case in point: A woman once insisted that I take her to her place before taking her to my place because she wanted to get the heels that matched my couch.

That one's going in the memoir.

Anyway, Jack, the next time you get a boo-boo while clubbing with your B-list actress client, instead of calling the police, design a state quarter and call your mom.

Asshole.