Category Archives: Truth
Go “Headlong Into the Apocalypse” with Emilia Barrosse!
Since returning to her hometown of Los Angeles after her college graduation, my daughter Emilia has been honing her craft as a standup comedian.
For the past couple years, Emilia has been earning laughs and developing her unique material in performance at comedy clubs in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and San Francisco.
Among the many clubs she’s played in Los Angeles are the famous Comedy Store on the Sunset Strip, The Formosa in West Hollywood, Flappers in Burbank, The Federal Bar in North Hollywood and The Leche Lounge in Silver Lake.
Now, Emilia is adding the Main Stage at iO West to that list.
If you’ve been among the many wonderful folks who’ve come out to see her club gigs, you’ve Emilia do 7-minute sets – 12 minutes or so when she’s headlining the show.
This time she’s doing her first full-length show: an hour of offbeat, satiric and highly original standup comedy on July 8, 9 and 10.
All shows are at 7:00 PM at iO West, located at 6366 Hollywood Boulevard.
Tickets are $10.
Click here to let us know if you’re ready to go “Headlong Into The Apocalypse” with Emilia!
With Trump As Nominee, The GOP Chickens Have Come Home to Roost.
For more than fifty years, the Republican Party, has betrayed its distant, noble 19th century origin as ”the party of Lincoln” and has moved inexorably toward its degeneration into the party of Donald J. Trump: the rump repository of poor, ill-educated, mostly white, xenophobic anger and class resentment.
To those who aren’t students of political history, it may seem crazy that a vulgar, bloviating, serially insulting, spray-tanned, combed-over, shoot-from-the hip billionaire real estate mogul turned reality TV personality with zero political or government experience could seize the Presidential nomination of one of our nation’s two major political parties. But, if you’ve been paying attention since 1964 (or you’ve done the least bit of research), you wouldn’t be so shocked.
Given trends in the Republican party over the past half century, The Donald’s domination of the Republican nominating process should not be a surprise at all: the blitzkrieg elevation of Trump 2016 was, if not inevitable, then certainly very, very, very possible.
With Trump as their standard bearer, whether Republicans like it or not, the chickens have come home to roost for the Grand Old Party.
The phrase “the chickens have come home to roost” means that the bad things someone did in the past have come back to bite them. They must deal with the consequences of dark deeds done long ago.
That expression has been fraught with heavy socio-political baggage, ever since Malcolm X used it in relation to the assassination of John F. Kennedy, saying that, “President Kennedy never foresaw that the chickens would come home to roost so soon.”
When he was widely excoriated for his remark, Malcolm X explained that he meant, “the hate in white men had not stopped with the killing of defenseless black people, but that hate, allowed to spread unchecked, had finally struck down this country’s Chief Magistrate.”
Regardless of whether you consider Malcolm’s statement offensive, his citing of “hate, allowed to spread unchecked” has resonance in the context of the current state of the GOP. Indeed, the Republican Party has gotten to this woeful point by deliberately stoking the fires of racial animus, anti-government paranoia, religious intolerance and anti-intellectualism to serve its narrow electoral purposes.
The cancer in the GOP that has metastasized in Trump’s primary success began its rot decades ago with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and The Voting Rights Act of 1965. These two landmark legislative victories for racial equality and egalitarian progress were passed by overwhelming Democratic majorities in the House and Senate and signed into law by a Democratic President.
It’s been said that when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, he turned to his press secretary and stated ruefully that the Democratic Party had just “lost the South for a generation.”
Indeed, this was the fateful moment for both major parties. Southern Democrats — “Dixiecrats” as they were called — finally bolted their party for the GOP, fueling the Republican Party’s transition from the anti-slavery “Party of Lincoln” into the “state’s rights”, anti-Federal government repository of white resentment and racism a century after Abraham Lincoln’s martyrdom.
From the mid-1960s to the 1980s – from Nixon to Reagan to Bush, the Republicans sought power by exploiting white, working class disaffection with the advancing Civil Rights movement and other progressive social advancements, from feminism to birth control, gun control and affirmative action. Among this new GOP coalition were Nixon’s “Silent Majority” and “Reagan Democrats” — religious conservatives, including formerly Democratic working class Catholics, who rallied to Republican rhetoric against reproductive rights, LGBT rights and other progressive social causes.
To help keep the flames of anger stirred among their new coalition, Republican politicians were not above race baiting – sometimes in subtle ways and often in overt ways. The openly racist candidacies of George Wallace and former KKK leader David Duke were obvious overtures to racial prejudice.
Ronald Reagan was subtle.
When candidate Reagan touted “states rights” in a speech at the Neshoba County Fair in Mississippi during his 1980 campaign – many heard an unmistakable race-baiting dog whistle.
Reagan and his staff no doubt knew that in June of 1964, just a few miles from where he spoke, three young civil rights workers (called “Freedom Riders) were murdered by white racists in one of the most infamous atrocities during the Civil Rights Movement.
Reagan’s choice of speaking venue that day was a continuation of Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy.”
KLBJ Billboard on August 15, 2011
The GOP has refined its Southern Strategy over the years into a less obviously racist but no less intolerant “God, Guns and Gays” strategy.
The moneyed Republican political elites cynically exploited these hot-button social issues to garner conservative votes. Yet, once they got those votes, GOP legislators rarely delivered on their fiery rhetoric. Tax breaks for the wealthy were what the Republican Party was truly all about.
After more than five decades of this bait and switch, many in the GOP’s angry extreme right wing got wise to the game. The most zealous of the largely Southern, anti-government, anti-choice (and, yes, racist) base grew impatient with “establishment” Republican political hacks who talked big about outlawing abortion, relaxing gun laws, putting prayer back in schools, ending affirmative action and deporting illegal immigrants – but did little or nothing to advance that agenda. And while GOP candidates crowed, “jobs, jobs, jobs” – once in office, they concentrated instead on tax policy that favored the wealthy and large corporations.
Thus, the Tea Party was born. GOP seats in the House of Representatives — and some in the Senate — were soon occupied by a large bloc of true believers for whom compromise was a dirty word. So, we got dozens of attempts to limit a woman’s right to choose and overturn Obamacare and annual threats of government shutdowns — and why not?
If you’ve been told for decades that government can do any good, who cares if it shuts down?
After all, it was Reagan who said in his first inaugural address, “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”
This year, the GOP’s toxic sludge of anti-government rhetoric and subtle (and not so subtle) appeals to racism and intolerance have combined with their own constituency’s anger at the party establishment’s failure to deliver on social issues and jobs, jobs, jobs to produce the noxious nomination of political outsider Donald J. Trump.
Let’s not forget that Trump first seized national political attention in 2011 by questioning the citizenship of the first African-American President of the United States. The Donald was a champion of the “Birther” movement. It wasn’t a dog whistle to the racists in the GOP base: it was a trumpet blast.
A year earlier, in an interview in The National Journal, doddering white Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky declared that, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” Seriously. Old cracker McConnell’s number one goal was to delegitimize the first black President.
McConnell, of course, failed in his goal.
Just as the GOP establishment failed in its goal of stopping Donald J. Trump from winning the party’s nomination.
After all, one thing leads to another.
And Republicans only have themselves to blame.
The Vic & Paul & Dana Show
My wife Victoria and I have known Dana Olsen since our days at Northwestern University in the late 1970’s. Dana was a damned funny guy then – and he’s gotten even funnier over the years.
While Victoria and I worked on the stage and then in television, Dana focused on screenwriting. Among the many films he’s written are The Burbs, Memoirs of an Invisible Man and George of the Jungle.
Vic and I have remained close with Dana since graduation – and in the past few years we’ve been performing together again. The last time was when we joined Dana and other friends for Mr. Olsen’s New Year’s Rockin’ Neighborhood on New Year’s Eve 2013 at 27 Live in Evanston, Illinois – the college town just north of Chicago where we all first met in 1976.
For the past several months, we’ve been getting together with Dana whenever he’s in town – or we’re in Chicago – to brainstorm and improvise comedy sketches (which is just about our very favorite thing to do in this world). And, golly, the world’s been giving us some great subject matter this year!
Then, two great musical friends agreed to join the party: our longtime Practical Theatre Company musical director and Whiskey Lounge impresario, Steve Rashid — and drummer Rockin’ Ronny Crawford, who’s hit the skins for Lisa Loeb, Anna Nalick and The Rockme Foundation, among many others.
Thus comes “The Vic & Paul & Dana Show” — an improv sketch revue featuring music, comedy and a few cocktails. Baby Boomers by birth, we’re all wading chest-deep through middle age. But blessedly, our sharp taste for humor and irony – and a neat Manhattan — has not been dulled. Our show is a toast to grown up fun amid the craziness of contemporary life.
“The Vic & Paul & Dana Show” will play for just three nights – from Thursday, November 19 to Saturday, November 21 at the iO West Theatre in Hollywood, CA. All shows at 7:30.
Come out, enjoy a beverage or two — and share some well-earned laughs with us.
Here’s a gallery of shots from our photo session with Bradford Rogne. (He’s really good, folks.)
Photo by Bradford Rogne Photography
A Musical Tribute to Memphis.
Memphis, Tennessee is the birthplace of rock and roll. It’s where the King of Rock & Roll lived and died. It’s where the Delta blues stopped for a drink on Beale Street before heading up to Chicago. And it’s where my late brother Peter managed the city’s finest luxury hotel, The Peabody. So, let’s celebrate Memphis in song…
1. Long Way from Memphis (The Automatics)
This cut is by a band of English ex-pats living in Los Angeles. The drummer (Paul Crowder) is friend of mine. He’s also a great video editor. I met him while working on “Behind The Music”. Saw him and the band play live at a club in Los Angeles and they opened with this fine rock & roll tune – which includes an Elvis sighting in Kalamazoo.
2. All the Way to Memphis (Mott the Hoople)
For years I loved this song – but I had no idea what Ian Hunter was singing about. The song was my favorite on the 1973 album “Mott”, which was the follow-up to “All The Young Dudes.” Listening to the song over and over, I can now tell that it’s about Hunter losing a guitar and having a hard time getting it returned to him. Never knew there was an Oriole, Kentucky – but it’s lucky for Ian, because Oriole rhymes with Rock & Roll if you pronounce it that way. The song’s best line? “It’s a mighty long way down rock ‘n’ roll, from the Liverpool docks to the Hollywood Bowl.”
3. I’ve Been to Memphis (Lyle Lovett)
Of course Lyle Lovett’s been to Memphis. This song, like so many songs with a Memphis connection, mentions a lot of other towns – and women – along the way. I love the honky-tonk feel of this one.
4. Memphis In the Meantime (John Hiatt)
John Hiatt ditches Nashville so he and his lady can “get good and greasy” in Memphis. The band on this track is an all-star group: Hiatt (acoustic guitar), Ry Cooder (electric guitar), Nick Lowe (bass) and Jim Keltner (drums). Nice company, huh? Ronnie Milsap, it’s your loss.
5. Graceland (Paul Simon)
While John Hiatt goes to Memphis to enjoy the down and dirty rhythm and blues with some boozy babe, Paul Simon is traveling on a pilgrimage seeking benediction and redemption. The title track of one of Simon’s greatest albums, it has some of his finest lyrics – and Simon nails the allure and power of Memphis and The King’s mansion. I have just one quibble with Simon. The Mississippi delta can surely shine like a National guitar – but it’s not “the cradle of the Civil War.” That infamy belongs to South Carolina. Just ask General Sherman’s troops.
6. I’m Going to Memphis (Johnny Cash)
The Man in Black got his start in Memphis with Sam Phillips and Sun Records: part of the Million Dollar Quartet of Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash. In this song, credited to Alan Lomax and associated with Memphis Slim, Johnny is journeying to Memphis to see and do a lot of strange things. I don’t think Johnny’s on the same holy pilgrimage that Paul Simon is going on.
7. Going Back to Memphis (The Levon Helm Band)
Levon Helm and his band are having a great time on this rollicking, rocking track.
The whole thing is a party, led by Levon at his gravelly best.
One of rock and roll’s best examples of a guy who can lead a band from behind his drum kit, Levon takes another journey through song to the great musical Mecca on the Mississippi.
8. Memphis (Chuck Berry)
“Long-distance information, get me Memphis, Tennessee.” Thus, Chuck Berry begins one of the most oft-covered tunes ever written about Memphis. Chuck says he recorded this one at his office in St. Louis on an $80 Sears Roebuck reel-to-reel. (Although $80 was a lot of money in those days.) With its surprise ending, in which we learn that “Marie is only 6-years old,” this is one of those perfect rock and roll songs that Chuck Berry churned out so magically in the 1950’s. It’s another reason we’re all Chuck’s children.
9. Guitar Man (Elvis Presley)
This is a great comeback Elvis track, proving that the King of Rock & Roll had survived Hollywood and emerged with his voice and flawless sense of rhythm and dynamics intact. Jerry Reed, who wrote the song (and could also play guitar like a-ringin’ a bell) had a minor hit with the tune in 1967 — but Elvis’ cover (with Reed on guitar) became a chart topper. Recorded in Nashville in the late 1960’s, it was re-remixed and re-released four years after The King’s death, scoring him a posthumous #1 hit on the country charts in 1981.
Here’s a clip from the ’68 Comeback Special. There’s some fun stuff at the top, then Elvis tears into a bit of “Guitar Man”, proving he’s still the King of Rock & Roll.
10. Johnny Bye-Bye (Bruce Springsteen)
In this short, dark and complex song, Bruce ties Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry together. The Boss starts out with the opening lyrics of Chuck’s “Bye Bye Johnny,” (“She drew out all her money from the Southern Trust, and put her little boy aboard a Greyhound bus”) then pivots to a meditation on the death of Elvis, from his rise to stardom (“Leaving Memphis with a guitar in his hand, a one-way ticket to the promised land”) to his death at Graceland (“They found him slumped up against the drain, a whole lot of trouble running through his veins”).
11. King’s Call (Phil Lynott)
Another musical meditation on the death of Elvis Presley: this one’s a deeply personal tribute by Thin Lizzy’s lead singer, Phil Lynott – who also died tragically young, passing away at the age of 36 in 1986. “King’s Call” is a track from Lynott’s first solo album – and if the guitar playing sounds familiar, that’s because Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler sat in on guitar and backing vocals. I love this tune.
12. Memphis Monday Morning (Bobby “Blue” Bland)
As Phil Lynott sang in the previous track, “It was a rainy night, the night The King went down.” So perhaps Mr. Bobby Blue Bland is singing about that very night, as he takes us through this jazzy, bluesy walk through the late night/early morning streets of Memphis. Along the way, he name checks my brother’s hotel and several other Memphis locations. The musicianship on this track is awesome: a little cool jazz mixed with the blues for all you classy cats.
13. Big Train (From Memphis) (John Fogerty)
The great John Fogerty’s tribute to Sam Phillips and Sun records is dominated by the train imagery evoked in so many songs from and about Memphis. (By the way, I had the honor of meeting Sam Phillips in the late 1990’s when I interviewed him for Rick Nelson: Behind The Music. We sat at the same Formica kitchen table in Sam’s Memphis house where he sat with Elvis when he told the future King of Rock & Roll that he was selling his contract to RCA. No brag, just fact.) This song was on Fogerty’s hit 1985 “comeback album” Centerfield, and was covered the next year by the living Sun Records legends: Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Roy Orbison. Alas, only The Killer is still with us at the age of 79.
14. Night Train To Memphis (Dean Martin)
Dino gets into some pre-rock & roll, country swing on this song, written by Beasley Smith, Marvin Hughes and Owen Bradley.
Somehow, Dean Martin makes everything he does sound groovy and utterly cool.
Given that Dean was one of Elvis’ biggest heroes – and that Elvis tried to emulate Dino’s sound – it’s only fitting that the King of Cool have his spot in this Memphis themed lineup.
15. Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again (Bob Dylan)
In this fabulous track from Blonde on Blonde, Dylan puts together perhaps the greatest word collage in the history of rock & roll. And among all those words, he keeps referring to “the Memphis blues”, which he obviously has again – though he (and Jerry Reed’s guitar man) are stuck in Mobile, Alabama at the time. If this song had been sung by Ian Hunter it would be completely incomprehensible, but Dylan makes the words quite clear even if the meaning is elusive. Who cares? It’s great. It rocks. And it’s the last tune on this tribute to Memphis, Tennessee – the birthplace of rock & roll.
President Obama Shreds the Pundits.
President Obama made the following remarks at a recent fundraiser, calling out the false equivalency narratives spun by the insufferable, Beltway-blinkered poobahs of the pundit class. He should continue to say these things publicly and emphatically – just like Harry Truman would have – all the way up to the mid-term elections.
“You’ll hear if you watch the nightly news or you read the newspapers that, well, there’s gridlock, Congress is broken, approval ratings for Congress are terrible. And there’s a tendency to say, a plague on both your houses.
“But the truth of the matter is that the problem in Congress is very specific.
“We have a group of folks in the Republican Party who have taken over who are so ideologically rigid, who are so committed to an economic theory that says if folks at the top do very well then everybody else is somehow going to do well; who deny the science of climate change; who don’t think making investments in early childhood education makes sense; who have repeatedly blocked raising a minimum wage so if you work full-time in this country you’re not living in poverty; who scoff at the notion that we might have a problem with women not getting paid for doing the same work that men are doing.
“They, so far, at least, have refused to budge on bipartisan legislation to fix our immigration system, despite the fact that every economist who’s looked at it says it’s going to improve our economy, cut our deficits, help spawn entrepreneurship, and alleviate great pain from millions of families all across the country.
“So the problem…is not that the Democrats are overly ideological — because the truth of the matter is, is that the Democrats in Congress have consistently been willing to compromise and reach out to the other side.
“There are no radical proposals coming out from the left. When we talk about climate change, we talk about how do we incentivize through the market greater investment in clean energy. When we talk about immigration reform there’s no wild-eyed romanticism. We say we’re going to be tough on the borders, but let’s also make sure that the system works to allow families to stay together…
“When we talk about taxes we don’t say we’re going to have rates in the 70 percent or 90 percent when it comes to income like existed here 50, 60 years ago. We say let’s just make sure that those of us who have been incredibly blessed by this country are giving back to kids so that they’re getting a good start in life, so that they get early childhood education…
“Health care — we didn’t suddenly impose some wild, crazy system. All we said was let’s make sure everybody has insurance. And this made the other side go nuts — the simple idea that in the wealthiest nation on Earth, nobody should go bankrupt because somebody in their family gets sick, working within a private system.
“So when you hear a false equivalence that somehow, well, Congress is just broken, it’s not true. What’s broken right now is a Republican Party that repeatedly says no to proven, time-tested strategies to grow the economy, create more jobs, ensure fairness, open up opportunity to all people.”
Now, I wish the mainstream Democratic Party position on climate change was more radical – and I don’t like hearing President Obama extolling an “all of the above” strategy, especially if that means we all get “fracked” in the process.
But, let there be no doubt. Progressives must get out the vote this fall. The only answer to our broken Congress is a Senate controlled by Democrats – and a House of Representatives in which Nancy Pelosi once again holds the gavel. Important issues like climate change, immigration reform, raising the minimum wage, Wall Street reform and income inequality will never be addressed while Republicans are in a position to obstruct positive change.
Then, in 2016, we must work to keep a Democrat in the White House – because our endangered democracy can’t afford another religiously biased, corporate stooge conservative on The Supreme Court.
But first – we’ve got to get that oversized gavel out of John Boehner’s hands.
A Childhood Memory of Kent State, May 4, 1970.
(I first posted this article in 2012.)
On May 4th, we should pause to remember the price of freedom, paid in blood by patriots – like the young people who died at Kent State.
On this day 42 years ago at Kent State University, Ohio National Guardsmen fired 67 shots into a group of students protesting the American invasion of Cambodia — killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom was permanently paralyzed.
The small college town of Kent is about 40 miles southeast of Cleveland, where on Monday, May 4, 1970 I was an elementary school student at St. Rocco’s School. The shooting on the Kent State campus began at 12:24 pm – and by the time we were getting out of school at 3:00 pm, the news had reached Cleveland. But the news was by word of mouth when I first heard it. And it was wrong.
The first thing I heard when I walked out of school along with my 6th grade classmates was that “some hippies had shot some National Guardsmen.”
That’s what I heard from one of the parents waiting to pick up their kids.
When we got home and turned on our black and white television sets, Walter Cronkite set us straight.
Later, Crosby, Still, Nash & Young captured the moment, the sorrow, the sacrifice — and the defiance.
“Ohio”
Written by Neil Young
Tin soldiers and Nixon’s coming, We’re finally on our own. This summer I hear the drumming, Four dead in Ohio. Gotta get down to it Soldiers are gunning us down Should have been done long ago. What if you knew her And found her dead on the ground How can you run when you know? Tin soldiers and Nixon’s coming, We’re finally on our own. This summer I hear the drumming, Four dead in Ohio. Four dead in Ohio Four dead in Ohio.
A Funny Girl @ Grauman’s on Friday!
My daughter Emilia’s rising standup comedy career continues this Friday, May 2 at the Inside Jokes Comedy Club on the third floor of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre at 8:00 pm.
The show is called “Women Who Kill.”
That’s “kill” in the “knock ‘em dead” sense of the word.
Please note, in a bit of unintended comedy, Emilia’s last name is misspelled as “Barrossetta” – which may be the all-time record for misspelling and mispronunciation of our somewhat complicated, unique surname.
I’m told that you can get on the guest list (a free ticket) by Emailing lisa@prettyfunnywomen.com and letting her know you’re a friend of Emilia.
Otherwise, if you’d like to support the arts, $15 tickets can be ordered here:
Indoor parking is just $2 with validation.
According to the Inside Jokes website, “at Inside Jokes you get a hip and contemporary comedy club experience. A theater styled seating plan, a custom built stage directly in front a state of the art screen that serves as an artistic backdrop. We’re not your ordinary comedy club! When you come to Inside Jokes you’re experiencing a night on the town.
After the show guests of the club are invited to exit the theater and head for the Inside Jokes Lounge where you can mingle, meet the performers, grab a cocktail and enjoy some good music without having to leave the building.”
I say, “Come for the comedy. Stay for the footprints.”
Paul's Voyage of Discovery & Etc. 
Emilia’s First Comedy Special…
Readers of this blog are doubtless aware that one of my three daughters is a standup comic – and that she appeared this summer in her first comedy special, filmed at iO West in Hollywood. (What? You somehow managed to miss all those promotional posts?)
Emilia’s been performing her unique brand of comedy in clubs from Los Angeles to Chicago to New York City – and San Francisco, too. The material she wrote and knit together for “Headlong Into The Apocalypse” is the very funny fruit of her first couple of years working in the comedy vineyards.
And if any of you know Donald Trump, please forward him a link to this video. He’ll hear his name a couple of times.
We know how much he enjoys that.
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Filed under Art, Beauty, Comedy, Improvisation, Politics, Random Commentary, Truth
Tagged as cabaret, Donald Trump, Emilia Barrosse, flying, Headlong into the Apocalypse, improvisational comedy, iO West, standup comedy, Trix Rabbit