Mike's Blog

This is my monologue called, “Look What Mike Stepped In” from my weekly podcast called, “Look What I Stepped In!”

Episode #6

This week, I want to talk about stand-up comedy and the quality of today’s joke writing.

As a child, I used to stay up past my bedtime, watching or listening to some of the greatest comedians of all time. Such greats as George Carlin, Bill Cosby, Robin Williams, Robert Klein, Don Rickles, Red Foxx, Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor, just to name a few. These were my comedy mentors growing up.

I was also very fortunate to be alive during comedy’s golden era in the 80’s. Listening to some very unique acts, which helped to prepare me for writing jokes as well as even attempting to do actual stand-up comedy.

The comedians in the 80’s told their story and how they felt about everything. It was very personal, not to mention entertaining.

Comedy clubs in the 80’s were popping up everywhere. They were even actually paying their comedians a reasonable wage. The clubs also use to take more responsibility for the quality of the comedy, by qualifying and filtering comedians through a process.

Then came stand-up comedy on television and things would be changed forever.

Today, comedy clubs are using a selection process for comedians, that at times seems very questionable. It doesn’t seem to be based on measuring one’s entertainment quality. It seems to be more about favoritism, facebook friends and YouTube hits.

The stand-up comedy scene in Los Angeles is so saturated with wannabe actors chewing up stage time, spewing out ridiculous lines, that have no real connection to anything, especially funny. It’s no longer personal. It’s no longer feeling real.

In the 80’s, it was clean and dirty comedy, and it was real.

Today, I find comedians are talking about things that 90% of the time, never really happened. Not to them at least. Instead, it’s becoming all about the taboo. Comedians seem to be super focused on writing material that talks about Race issues, Porn, Sex, blow jobs and butt fucking. The problem I have with this is, it’s never really that funny. I find it to be pretty hack, and it’s been done by just about everyone, a million times over.

If you were to survey an audience of comedy patrons with a multiple choice questionnaire, and there was only 1 question: What type of comedy do you find the funniest? And, your only choices for answers were: 1. Clean comedy 2. Political comedy 3. Getting to know me comedy and 4. Dick and pussy, sex talk, racial comedy. I really don’t think you’ll be seeing a lot of circles around answer number 4.

Don’t get me wrong, I know that there’s a time and a place for everything. And, I not trying to say that “Blue” material can’t be funny. It’s just that when you have a stand-up comedy lineup of 10+ comedians in a 2 hour show, and back-to-back all you see is mediocre comedy laced with a bulldozing barrage of unfunny sex commentary, it just becomes extremely tiring and played out.

So, my advice is be fucking original. Do the sex jokes, if they actually happened to you, but make the joke have some substance. Nobody wants a play-by-play, we just want it to be funny and not to just you, but rather the entire room. It will help in making comedy more sustainable. It will make stand-up comedy a destination people want to go to. Just like the movies.

This is my monologue called, “Look What Mike Stepped In” from my weekly podcast called, “Look What I Stepped In!”

Episode #5

This week, I want to speak on the effects of manipulating individuals with misleading and sometimes outright false information. Both parties, Democrats and Republicans, practice manipulation to effectively get what they want.

The Democrats, manipulate their base by presenting information that represent Republicans as tax-cutting, antisocial program having, oil burning, anti-evolutionist, religious fanatics, which at times is hard to deny.

The Republicans, manipulate their base by presenting information that represent Democrats as tree-hugging, electric car driving, global warming, stem-cell researching, agnostic, baby killers, which too at times is hard to deny.

For instance, the republicans love to point out, what they consider facts about their own base. One of my favorites, came out recently, due to the “War on Women” conversation, which by the way, is very fucking real.

Alex Castellanos, a CNN republican analyst, said on Meet the Press this Sunday, that 50% of the republican base are women, while the other half are men. This percentage statement was meant to explain, that due to the fact that their base is 50% women, that it wouldn’t make sense for republicans to have a specific agenda against women. Well, that statistic would be useful, if it weren’t absolutely false. I’ll explain why.

Now, it’s easy to assume that 100% of all republicans participate in a traditional union, between a man and a woman. That’s at least what they would like you to believe, but in reality it’s simply not the case.

Now, this is going to hurt the faces of most republicans, especially those who are unable to respect marriage equality, but there’s approximately 31% of registered republican voters are gay. Which blows my mind, in a hetero kind of way.

Now, if you think to yourself and do a little math, I’m pretty sure you’ll find that the percentage point of 50% women, changes dramatically when you factor in the gay percentage. And, if they had statistics, polling gay men over gay women, I think it’s safe to say that there are more gay men voting republican than there are gay women. I believe this is true, simply due to all the negative agendas facing women and their bodies. I find it extremely difficult for a gay women to vote republican, unless they are a multi millionaire business owner. And, if they vote republican, it’s simply for the money.

Most women in a traditional marriage vote the same as their husbands. This is a classic conditioning that stems from the days when women were not allowed to vote. The moment women were given the right to vote, was the moment men started jumping down their throats, telling them who to vote for. I’ve personally met wives, who vote absentee and let their husbands fill out their ballots. What’s up with that.

Then, there is also, relationships like James Carville and Mary Madeline, both polar opposite political analysts. James a democrat and Mary a republican. Living proof that you can never assume married couples would share the same political positions. Or, maybe they’re just not a part of the norm.

Nonetheless, assuming we can respect these blanket statement from the republicans is just nonsense. 50% of republicans are women, right. Think again.

Now, the democrats make statements all the time, spinning things out of control as well, like that republicans are not interested in climate change or alternative fuel sources or even helping individuals who are suffering. That’s simply not true either. Republicans are not heartless, they just want the help to come from other more private resources and not the Federal government. Or, better yet, they want the help, they just don’t want to pay for helping everyone else.

The problem is, the republican have an extremely hard time explaining their ideas on how to solve the issues in a more private way. Or, even creating private organizations that come even close to covering all the needs of our society.

From the democrats perspective, republicans feels like they love to “Cut and Run.” It’s like the idea of cutting taxes is somehow going to stimulate the economy, which never really makes sense to democrats. Mostly, because of our nation’s history lessons, which has shown us multiple times that cutting taxes and social programs simply doesn’t work. We just need to tax smartly.

Taxes were established to pay for programs that private citizens need, but are unable or unwilling to come together and make things work in a privately controlled way. So, we let agendas, lead us to bills, that then become the fabric of our lives. Like roads, hospitals, police and military.

Do you really know why gas continues to rise in price? It’s because we live in a capitalistic society that lets private businesses set their own price, based on market value and supply and demand. If you believe in capitalism and not socialism, then you can get mad at the rise in gas prices.

If Newt Gingrich had his way, he would have allowed the government to use its power to force oil companies to either set their prices lower, basically to around $2 a gallon was his plan. How would you do that? Set tariff on them, or tax them… What? What could a government really do to an oil company, other than not accept their oil. Regardless, oil prices are going to go up. Period. Forever, so get used to it. We know someone in the world is going to buy it. And, the less we use, the more expensive it will become. So, we’re fucked, unless we get off the teet of oil companies.

Basically, education is the reason for our current problems, especially when it comes to our unemployment situation. As a nation, we have decided to stop paying for public education, which has led to a country of unqualified people. This was due to cutting vital programs. So, once again cutting is not the answer.

Somehow, we need to come together on the issues and start to pay for things we need, in an effort to have the best and healthiest working class of individuals this world has ever seen.

We will get there, when we actually start to care about all mankind.