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Saturday, November 28, 2009

Passing the Bucks

Here's an excerpt of a conversation I heard between two Starbucks workers in New York.

WORKER 1: Yo, you know Sam is allergic to mocha right?

WORKER 2: Word?

WORKER 1: Yeah he can't even touch it or he'll break out, yo.

WORKER 2: Word?

WORKER 1: But it's only Starbucks chocolate that makes him break out. Crazy right?

WORKER 2: Word.

This Sam sounds like my kind of guy. Get a job then find a loophole that precludes you from doing nearly half the work required of you. Before the manager of this Starbucks embarks on an exhaustive study to isolate the ingredient in their mocha powder that might be an allergenic I suggest they check old Sam's character.

His story might check out but even if it does doesn't it simply mean he can't work at Starbucks. I mean I can't join the circus as a tight rope walker and then spring my fear of heights on them on my first day of work.

ME: Guys, I'm actually deathly afraid of heights. But I'm cool standing on the platform and waving. I've really spend a lot of time getting my wave down pat...so you guys balance and I'll wave...cool?

I wanted to chime in but I bit my tongue, ordered my Awake tea, Grande with one tea bag and went on my way.

7:16 PM

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Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Make That Change

I recently spent a few days in jolly old London. I must admit, even this native New Yorker had to adjust to London's speed. I wouldn't say it's New York on steroids. More like New York on creatine and protein shakes.

What is on steroids is the pound compared to the dollar. The prices are deceiving because they make sense in dollars but when you do the math you realize that your decision to super-size your cheeseburger meal at McDonald's is really going to cost you 9 US dollars. That's like airport in Beverly Hills prices. And Beverly Hills doesn't have an airport.

The main reason an American and his money are soon departed in the UK is the usage of pound coins. They have a 1 pound, two pound and 5 pound coin. Coin I tell ya! My US mentality of being willy nilly with coins really wreaked havoc on my bottom line.

Sure we have dollar coins but they're more of a novelty. When we get them our minds begin to race. The first thing we think is this dollar coin may be worth something. But the fact that it was dispensed as change from a ticket machine forces you to rethink your trip to the Antiques Road show. Our second thought is one of mild horror. Will this “dollar” get lost amongst my other change. What if I lose it or pass it on thinking it's a quarter?! We have to rid ourselves of the shiny anomaly burning a hole in our pocket. It's currency cooties and we're looking to pass it on as soon as possible. You might even buy something you don't want or need just to end it. And as you pay you have to repeatedly announce to the clerk that you're handing him a dollar.

I will even give my dollar coins to a lucky transient. And as I drop in into his cup, I proudly declare that I'm giving him a dollar and he should be careful not to mix it up with the other small change “others” have given him. Maybe he could put my gracious gift in another pocket. Perhaps he should have another cup for dollar coins.

Usually though, my homeless beneficiary looks as annoyed by the coin as I was. Time to trade in my London coinage for some greenbacks.

3:34 PM

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Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Lights, Camera, Action Heroes

I use long airplane flights to see movies I wouldn't watch in my regular life. If the movie is bad, no skin off my teeth as I didn't pay to see it. If the movie is good, I'm pleasantly surprised and again I didn't pay to see it. An 11 hour flight from Los Angeles to London and another 11 hour flight from London to Johannesburg offers ample opportunity to roll the proverbial movie dice.

So I watched the latest Fast & Furious. They should make another category in the Academy Awards for: Best Action Hero Saying Ridiculous lines while keeping a straight face. It's a gift I tell you. There were easily 10 lines that Vin Diesel said with not a hint of irony that a lesser man could not have pulled off. The badder the script, the better the actor must be to pull it off. Anyone can connect with losing a loved one or a cheating spouse but try telling a bad guy...”You're a bad apple, and tainted fruit salad makes me angry” without giggling. I know I couldn't. They would kick me off the set...

ME: Can we cut? I'm sorry but who talks like this? See here when I say “Evil doesn't take a day off but I'm gonna make it call in sick” Can't I just say “I'm going to fix the problem”?...okay fine I'll do it your way. I just hope you can edit out my giggling.

The best at it is Jason Statham. His work in Crank 2 has got to be the best piece of acting ever. He died in Crank 1! He died! So you see everything he does in Crank II is ridiculous. He spends the whole movie trying to get back his heart. But at every step along the way he must recharge the battery powering the fake heart put in by the people who took his real heart out. I'm not sure why they put the fake heart in. They probably regretted that decision 40 minutes into the movie when he came to kick some heart remover ass. Again I wouldn't last.

ME: I died in part one! I plummeted to the ground from a hundred stories in the air. Wouldn't that break every bone in my body. Don't your shoes fly off when you fall from that height?

My friend plays the inquisitive office detective in Fast & Furious. Her job was to set Mr Diesel up for the loaded one liners, saying things like “What makes you so sure?” and “Take a look at this...” She didn't skip a beat and adeptly navigated all the heavy handedness. I sat in amazement at her belief in the utterly unbelievable.

So Jason Statham, Vin Diesel, Clive Owen and all the others who boldly take improbable scripts and execute them like the real pros that they are, I say thank you.

11:38 PM

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Castle Lite Vanilla Ice Commercial

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Stop, Collaborate & Listen

So I'm in Johannesburg, South Africa with my good friend David Kau. We're at his house watching “South Africa's Got Talent.” I never watch these kind of shows but when in Jo-Burg...Plus I was tired and jet lagged so a mind numbing talent show was probably just what my brain needed. I was willing to roll the dice on the impact on my soul.

Just when I thought my soul would cry one prolonged tear, a commercial came on that rejuvenated not only my soul but my mind and body as well. For years American stars have been secretly dipping over to Europe or Asia and pushing products for the man. And why not. I know I would sell toothpaste in the Netherlands if it meant I get to keep my house and not become a cast member of the Surreal Life.

So I perked up when a Castle Light commercial came on pushing their new Ice beer and Vanilla Ice appeared on the screen dancing and rapping Ice Ice Baby. The commercial was hilarious and I'm officially giving much props to Vanilla Ice and to South Africa for getting the joke and letting Vanilla Ice get in on the joke.

If you want people to laugh with you and not at you then you simply have to join them in the laughter.

Ask yourself, would you rather work for UPS for 30 years or have one hit record and spend the rest of your life traveling the world performing that one song. I say suck it up and prepare for take-off.

even Louis Gossett Jr. got a piece

3:05 PM

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Wednesday, October 21, 2009

From Whence I came

I was in Chicago doing shows all last week. Fun times. I was working Zanies, a very classy, hip yet real club, the name notwithstanding. So what did I go after a very fun and fulfilling show at Zanies? That's right I went to an open mic.

A young Chicago comic invited me and I said what the hay. It was pretty brutal, like looking at fashions from the 80's...Did I really dress like that? As I watched the comics I kept thinking...was I that bad? But I probably was. Watching open mics are like listening to a kid learn how to play Tuba. It's got to be real bad before it can get good. Sure some kids make a pleasant sound sooner than you would expect but only one in a million is a virtuoso out the gate.

I actually went up as my name was mysteriously put on the list. I had an okay set but I think my professionalism was a bit of a betrayal. Who's this guy following some sort of convention?! Many open mic comics are done in by trying to make comics in the back of the room laugh. Comics are a cynical jaded bunch and what makes them laugh is often not palpable to common folks. Imagine how spicy food has to be to make a Thai chef sweat. Probably the type of heat that would make a civilian call in sick.

I also couldn't help but wonder who would still be doing comedy 3 years from now and who would be an armchair comic telling their kids how they did comedy a few times one summer back in 09. I know from experience that some of the strongest ones out the gate will lose the fire or be led down a different path. Some of the awful ones might miraculously put it all together and I may be asking if I can open for them one day. You never know but there's something magical about that phase of comedy or anything I imagine. It's not about money yet and at the same time potential and hope creates a promise or at least possibility that they all will make it. No one's been plucked out of the bunch yet so they all have claim to the prize to the crown of best comic ever. Of course time will say different but good bad or worse they're all stars right now.

5:02 PM

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweetest_Day

Friday, October 16, 2009

Oh U Oh the Sweetest Day

I'm in a Walgreens in Chicago and...I see all these hearts and candy and such in the Promotional aisle. Pretty early jump on Valentine's day, no? I mean you still have Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas coming down the pike. Turns out the stuff was for something called “Sweetest Day.” I'm told it's a Midwest thing. I never heard of this “holiday.” I guess it's some kind of odd lead in to Valentine's Day.

Sweetest Day is to Valentine's Day what PSAT is to SAT.

Most holidays, or at least the way we choose to celebrate them, are contrived thinly veiled sales campaigns. But it's more glaring when it's a holiday celebrated right in your own country that you never heard of. Like religions, the only things that separate a valid holiday from a shady one are the number of people who follow it and how long it's been around. With proper marketing, one hundred years from now, Sweetest Day may sit on the Mount Rushmore of holidays right up there with Christmas and Thanksgiving. For now it's on par with Flag day and still eons behind St. Patty's day. Even Ground Hog's Day, which is more of an event than a holiday, outshines Sweetest Day.

And what's the ramifications if Sweetest Day really takes hold? It will widen the Can't Breakup Time Block. (CBTB) This is the time of year when you don't want to break up with someone either because it'll be too devastating to them or you don't want to spend the holidays alone. The current generally accepted block runs from 2 weeks after Halloween til a week after Valentine's Day. Sweetest day is the third Saturday in October. So now we're talking about expanding the CBTB by a whole month. And if your boo that you're through with birthday's in say...May and your anniversary is in say... August. You may never have the chance to move or be moved on.

This holiday could kick start marriages born into resentment.

8:16 PM

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Wednesday, October 14, 2009

All I Really Want is A Little Bit

Most cities will list museums and landmarks in their tourism brochures but they never list the true gift the city has to offer...People Watching. Any city worth it's salt will provide quality people watching opportunities.

But I haven't come to tell you what you already know. People watching isn't the order of the day. But it is the predecessor to another fun hobby of mine, snippet hunting. What's snippet hunting? It's people watching but you engage the sense of listening. The goal is to hear the most random bit of a conservation, or snippet, completely out of context and stop listening before it can in any way make sense. The goal is find something that is stand alone funny and ridiculous, maybe because of it's non sequitur-ness.

I came upon a jewel yesterday in Chicago on my way into a Trader Joe's. Two 30 something women were talking and on said to the other:

Carol said she's kick me in the stomach if I took her baby name

That my friends is a quality snippet. I didn't need to hear anything after or what came before. I hurried into the market to enjoy the snippet while I calculated the unit price of apples.

INSIDE MY HEAD: There's more in this bag but I believe this bag costs less per apple...then again are the apples bigger in this bag?...Doesn't my hotel have apples in the lobby for free?...kicked in the stomach...HA!

You can pretty much have a ball in any city. All you need is time, a way to get around and ears (in many cases one ear will do)

The thing that stuck with me the most is that even white yuppie housewives in Chicago don't take any shorts. Chicago is no joke.

Let's just hope Carol has her baby first.

9:25 PM

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me kinda krumping...kinda :-

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Five, Six, Seven, Eight...

So I went to do a Drenched Cardio class aka Tae-Bo class. They don't like you to say Tae-Bo but it's many of the people from the old Tae-Bo class doing moves almost identical to the moves we did in Taebo with Billy Blank's brother Michael leading the class. A Tae-Bo class by any other name...

I knew it was a hip hop themed class but I thought that meant more hip hop music and maybe more hip-hop inspired kicks. In actuality it was more of a dance class. Like a learn a routine from scratch, move by move class. These can be fun but stopping to watch a new move every other minute isn't exactly an intense cardio workout and you definitely don't leave drenched. Maybe you leave empowered by having learned a new routine you can do at the next family reunion but not drenched.

As I'm known to eat M&M Peanuts at night right before bed or to down a bag of Gold Fish as I watch the 2am Sportscenter...I was definitely in the market for a workout of the drenched variety.

I was game though. Plus I kind of needed to baseline where I am in choreographed dancing because I've been toying with the idea of getting a crew together and giving MTV's America's Best Dance Crew a run.

That dream died in the Tae Bo studio. I can still cut a rug but organized group dancing seems to longer be my thing. Was it ever my thing? I felt a bit of smugness from the quick learning regulars. But like I said I can still cut a rug. I was just rusty with the 5,6,7,8..... I was this close to challenging them to a krump off.

You can count and step but how strong is your core. Can you do a controlled seizure. Can you Harlem shake huh?! Can you look like a spider is crawling down your back on rhythm!?...I can.

9:22 PM

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Monday, October 12, 2009

Ricky Don't Lose That Number

Now, with cell phones, it's a lot harder to not give someone your number. Now, they want you to call them on the spot because God forbid they have a pen and write down their number. So a person who's barely email worthy, has your number. The only thing you can do at that point is to put their name in your phone so you at least know not to answer when they call. But will you remember not to answer 6 months from now? What if you don't know their last name? Or remember them at all.

YOU: Who's “Lord Too Nice”?!

I say you assign them a last name...but don't get caught...

LORDTOONICE: My last name isn't “Don't Answer!”

YOU: That's code for hell ya I'm going to answer...Not buying it?

I might have to get another cell phone just for not answering. I'm not trying to suggest that I'm that sought after just that people are intrusive. If I have given you my number, please don't think this is about you. This blog entry isn't autobiographical...necessarily.

7:52 AM

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