JWhiting.com

Truthiness seems to be a hallmark of conservative governments and that’s certainly also true up here in snowy Canada.

Canadian Conservative Justice Minister Rick Toews (pronounced “Taves” or similar) was on CBC Radio’s The House on Sunday, pushing his latest bill that calls for harsher penalties for impaired driving legislation, with a special focus on busting drug-impaired driving.

Sounds like a good idea right? Yeah, sorta. But, conveniently, Toews failed to mention how many accidents on Canadian roads are the result of recreational drug use. And do these suspiciously absent numbers justify the time, cost, energy and encroachment of Charter rights that would be required to enforce the new legislation? (Based on hunches and subjective tests, cops would be able to “demand […] bodily fluid”.)

Sure, it feels like a good idea to crack down on drug-impaired driving, but “from the gut” legislation results in laws that are more based on partisan optics than on genuine problem solving…

According to the exhaustive timeline that’s available here, it was on this day in 1963 that Lenny Bruce stepped out onto the stage of New York’s Village Theatre (which later became the famous rock and roll incubator, The Fillmore East).

It was a Friday and Bruce was set to kick off four packed-out shows — 11,000 tickets had been sold, and for good reason.

Only one week earlier JFK had been gunned down in Dallas and the country was in a state of shock.

Bruce already had a well-deserved reputation for straying beyond the boundaries of what was considered “decent” and New Yorkers were both giddy and anxious to see what the famously blue comedian would have to say about the assassination.

Bruce’s opening line has been called the greatest current events joke ever told.

But first a bit of backstory.

In 1962 Vaughn Meader, a one-time singer and piano player, got together with some writing and performing buddies to record The First Family, a comedy album that took advantage of Meader’s newfound ability to faithfully mimic the popular U.S. President.

Against all odds Meader’s album, released at the end of October, went platinum before Christmas and one year later had sold an astonishing 7.5 million copies. It even won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1963. In short, it was off-the-charts massive. (More info at Wikipeeds.)

Vaughn Meader gave an interview to the New York Times Magazine where he said:

I was in Detroit the day the album started selling like wildfire. That day “The Ed Sullivan Show” called me, Time Magazine, The New York Times. So I went back to New York, and I was walking past Sam Goody’s and there was a big crowd, all the way out to the middle of Broadway. And when I got closer I heard that they were listening to me — it was mind-boggling. Then it got totally crazy. Just gone. It was just a whirlwind, going here, going there, going here, going there. And playing the game — the star game. It was a blur, you know? I thought I was having the time of my life. Who wouldn’t? Just wine, women and song, you know? But it doesn’t last. And nobody knows when you’re down and out.

And yeah, it didn’t last.

When Lenny Bruce stepped onto the Village Theatre stage, he accomplished the impossible, summing up all the nation’s angst and heartbreak to deliver a JFK joke that was both genuinely funny and touching at the same time. Bruce’s line?

Poor Vaughn Meader.

And Bruce was right. Vaughn Meader never worked as a comedian again.

Happy Anniversary Lenny, Vaughn and JFK. (Thanks to Pete Radomski for telling me about it.)

Defamer was speculating about this about this 10 days ago, but tonight on Letterman, George Clooney confirmed that it was Brad Pitt who took out the full page ad in Variety Magazine that pokes fun at Clooney being named People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive for the second time (apparently Brad has also won twice).

(Click on the photo to see a larger image with Pitt’s funny byline.)

Sure, it’s a pretty hilarious jab, but the thing about this story that really caught my attention was the realisation that when pals like Brad Pitt and George Clooney play pranks on each other, they often drop big sacks of cash.

According to Variety’s Print Advertising Rate Card, if Pitt’s ad was inserted in Variety’s Hollywood Weekly Magazine it would have cost $17,430US while a one-time Variety National Ad run would have cashed-out at $23,220US.

Ladies, witness sexy rich boys at play…

Denis McGrath maintains a blog called Dead Things on Sticks that’s all about TV and TV writing, from an English Canada perspective.

McGrath is always a good read, but his latest post about how Corner Gas puts the boots to the whiners of the Canadian television industry is especially good.

It’s called How Corner Gas Ruined Everything.

From the article:

More than a million people watch Corner Gas in Canada every week, and have since it came out. Most weeks it’s closer to 1.5 million. To give context to that number, remember that Canada is a nation of 30 million people. So this is roughly equivalent to over 30 million viewers a week in the USA — which is way, way, way better than most of the shows that are considered hits in the USA. Better than Lost. Better than Prison Break. Better than House.

[UPDATE: I just found out that The Daily Show numbers are equivalent. About 1.5 mil/episode. Food for thought.]

McGrath goes on to make the case that Corner Gas does a couple of things that Canadian TV producers are squeemish about: It has a stable of quality writers, who work in a writing room as well as on-set, and it doesn’t have distain for its audience.

Radical concepts huh?

(Now if only the CRTC will quash these other whiners…)

Yesterday, Laurie David, global warming activist, wife of Larry David and one of the producers of An Inconvenient Truth had an article printed in the Washington Post.

It seems that David and other folks who financed Al Gore’s film wanted to donate 50,000 DVDs to the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA). The NSTA said, no thanks, because among other “concerns”, accepting the DVDs would:

[place] unnecessary risk upon the [NSTA] capital campaign, especially certain targeted supporters.

As Laurie David points out, one of those supporters is Exxon Mobil.

We’ve got big problems when a science teachers’ association starts to favor money over science.

Read the article, called “Science a la Joe Camel” here. (Thanks to Crooks and Liars for the heads-up.)

So last night, I called my buddy, to see if he wanted to head over to to check out some comedy, but he was planning on a long night of fantasizing about and couldn’t make it.

So I decide to head over to the club on my own and when I got there, was standing at the door and after reminding me that I’m not on ’til next week, tapped his heels together and disappeared to prepare the room.

Things were starting off late, which was fine with me, ’cause that meant I got to catch up with my buddy who just got back from Mexico. She gave me some strange Mexican candy.

was hosting and he brought up a two new guys that I hadn’t seen before. They both seemed like good new additions to the scene.

Then, came in and that was nice. She looked great.
Everything from there proceeded pretty much as normal, until , a “new” musical duo burst onto the scene! They are definitely *not gay* alright?! Good stuff.

I got the chance to see and then sat down and told me a crazy story about Lenny Bruce (who, inexplicably, hasn’t added himself to MySpace yet). I also gave $20 to give to his brother, who did the mascot banner for my site, jwhiting.com.

Thanks all. Fun night!

A cognitive neurophysiologist named Julia Simner has identified at least 10 people who involuntarily taste words when they hear them. (Hey comics, this gives a whole new definition to delivering a shitty set, huh?) Ha. Link here (subscription required).

There’s nothing necessarily funny or satirical here, but holy fuck, look at this picture of a fetus elephant in the womb!

Via Huffington Post. More here.

Boing Boing recently brought my attention to this hilarious photo set on Flickr that’s all about quotation mark abuse.

I especially like this particular photo from Flickr’s “srhbth” who captions his photo thusly:

I hope there’s not a “Fire” because then we might have to use this “Fire extinguisher” to put it out.

I discovered Tenacious D’s Fuck Her Gently with my buddies back in the early 00’s and clambered eagerly aboard the Jack Black train of intensity. I’m still kicking myself for not roadtripping it down to Burlington to see them live when they played live at Higher Ground.

The D’s first movie, several years in the works, is coming out on Friday and I can’t think of a modern band that embodies satire more than these guys. I especially love how they take the piss out of the whole devil & rock ‘n roll connection.

The D recently sat down for an interview with the Onion’s A.V. club who asked them, among other things, “Do you think Satan is a necessary component of rock ‘n’ roll?”

Jack Black responds:

No. There are some great bands that never incorporated Satan. But it’s a bygone era where Satan really participated. And there was a while there where you knew that you were a big band if there was a priest out front telling you not to go in. That is the measure of success.

Common priests. Where’s all the love/hate these days?

Wish I remember where I’d read this before, but trust John Amato over at the excellent Crooks and Liars to pick up the ball.

Variety reports that:

Joel Surnow, co-creator of “24,” is shooting two half-hour pilots [that] he described as ” ‘The Daily Show’ for conservatives”…

Oh man, can’t wait. Nothing screams hilarity like right-wing comics and shows that promote torture. (At least Dennis Miller should be available. Since his CNBC show has been cancelled, there doesn’t seem to be much going on in his life…)

Today’s featured article at Wikipeeds is a minute dissection of Stephen Colbert’s talk at the 2006 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner back in April.

Colbert is, of course, one of the English world’s greatest living satirists, consistently speaking “truthiness” to power. His talk at the Correspondents’ Dinner was hilarious, historical satire.

Initially, major news organizations failed to do any reporting on the event while the talk blew up huge online, causing a virtual YouTube meltdown and leaving news organisations scrambling to explain why they had suddenly gone silent. (A popular excuse seemed to be that the talk “just wasn’t funny” — a strange barometer for newsworthiness, but there you go.)

As the Widipedia article says, Time magazine TV critic James Poniewozik thought that Colbert’s critics missed the point:

Colbert wasn’t playing to the room, I suspect, but to the wide audience of people who would later watch on the Internet. If anything, he was playing against the room.

Keep on keepin’ on S.C. You’re #1 in my books.

I stumbled across a September article in the Toledo Blade about Republican dirtbag Tom Noe getting sent to jail. I like stories where people who mess with democracy get slapped down by the law.

What struck me most about the article, however, were the Crayon-ific stylings of Toledo Blade courtroom sketch artist, Wes Booher.

I’ll give you a moment to soak in all the gritty legal realism.

(It looks like on this particular day in court, a red-eyed woman’s head emerged from a computer monitor while Judge George Burns looked on stoically… Great work Wes!)

(Don’t you love alliteration headlines that end with question marks? …? ??!!)

Laying aside the fact that “succumbs” is the most impressively gayful word in the English language, everyone knows Dan Savage of the sex advice column Savage Love, yes? (…? ??!!)

If not, you can find an excellent Savage Love backgrounder at Wikipedia and then open your own voyeristic window on kinky North America from one of the many sites that syndicate it. (My bookmark points to Savage Love’s home on The Onion.)

Dan Savage has never shied away from slipping big issues into his colon column (a true GGG if there ever was one) and so back in 2003 when Rick Santorum defended laws banning gay sex on the grounds that legalizing homosexuality would open the door to bigamy, polygamy and incest, Dan decided to fight back.

Going with a written suggestion from one of his readers, Dan ran a poll in his column to determine which unlabeled-’til-then naughty thing should be named after Santorum.

Lo and behold, we now have:

san-TOR-um n. A frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex. (See also: Sen. Rick Santorum (R - PA).)

The movement to re-brand Santorum picked up steam online and off, tracked every step of the way from the Spreading Santorum site which became the #1 result when you Google “Santorum” (with Rick’s official site playing a bottom at #2).

Now that the midterm elections are over, nobody is saying that the santorum movement was single-handedly responsible for bringing down the Republican’s No. 3 man, but it certainly didn’t help.

I’ll leave the closing words to Dan Savage himself who said:

There’s a reason why monarchs and despots used to lock up political cartoonists and satirists. Being made ridiculous, being turned into the butt of a joke—that’s politically disempowering fairy dust. It’s hard to rule when you aren’t taken seriously, and it’s hard to be taken seriously after your name has been reduced to a dirty joke. Indeed, the power of satire should never be underestimated.

Ever watch Geoge Stroumboulopoulus’ show The Hour? Me neither. But then me and the Jeanster stumbled across it on Wednesday night and were very impressed. George is doing a great job of distilling the news while keeping it real doing the modern equivalent of “keeping it real”.

The Hour’s Wednesday night guest was Catherine O’Hara and she gave the most genuine interview I’ve seen in a long time. Honest, insightful, excellent. She’s a great actor and seems like an equally great person.

At the top of Hour interviews, they do a little video homage. I had forgotten everything O’Hara had done, from her SCTV days to working with Martin Scorsese, being in Beetlejuice and rocking it as the mom in Home Alone.

The interview is up on The Hour’s site here.