Karl's Roving Brain

You have probably already heard about Karl Rove's attempts to rewrite history in his upcoming memoir. He has already stated on a few news talk shows that it was Congress that rushed Bush into the Iraq war in the fall of 2002. Bush and his posse, apparently, wanted to be more cautious and not make the war political during an election year. Hmmmm.... not how I remember it and, so far, not how anyone other than Rove remembers it. The most surprising thing about this assertion is that Rove's pants did not catch fire or get hung from a telephone wire. You can read more about ol' asbestos pants and his lie HERE.

We here at the BS corporate office have scored an exclusive. We have an excerpt from Karl Rove's memoirs. It recounts a trip he and George Bush made to Baghdad in the autumn of 2003, months after we won the Iraq war.

In the early hours before dawn, George and I were still too giddy to sleep. At 4am, we heard all the mosques broadcasting their call to prayer. In celebration of their liberation, they changed the traditional Arabic chant to "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy" as sung by James Cagney. We both stepped into the hallway in our pajamas and giggled at the sight of the headline of the IRAQ Today newspapers at our hotel room doors. There just beneath its colorful banner, in English, was "Iraq Loves USA!" And then a subtitle, "We Hope They Take a Liking to Us and Stay."

There was a large window at the end of the hall. George and I decided to watch the sun rise over a new Baghdad. We threw up the sash and peeked out. We knew a Saddam-less Iraq would be transformational, but we had no idea how much! As the sun rose over the little houses with their white picket fences, we heard birds chirping. There along the street was a small horse pulling a milk wagon. The milkman, all dressed in white, delivered the day's dairy to Baghdad's housewives. I don't know how long we stared out that window transfixed. We saw long yellow busses being filled with skipping and laughing children on their way to school. We saw the local barber open up his shop while chatting with a friendly Iraqi policeman. A little boy helped an old woman cross the street. A teenage boy and a teenage girl, he in his varsity jacket, she in her cheerleader outfit, shyly met at the corner and walked hand-in-hand toward the local high school. And there was Sam, the local pharmacist, opening up his soda shop and general store. Any doubts anyone had over liberating the Iraqis would surely melt away if they saw what we saw. The people here are better off without Hussein, that's for sure. A newspaper boy on the sidewalk beneath us looked up and waved cheerfully at us. George threw the boy a gold coin to go buy the biggest turkey he could so George could take it to the troops and congratulate them on a job well done.

Next Chapter: How They Won the Iran War Without Me

THE BS NEWS QUIZ OF THE DAY

Yesterday, I asked...

"Which of the following is the title of a new reality game show in development?"

35% said "Who Wants to Have an Affair"
- This one just seems so likely, it probably has gone into production since yesterday.

15% said "Who Wants to Be a Surgeon"
- This is the one I would watch. Game show and a way to help uninsured Americans get the operations they need.

8% said "Who Wants to Eat Spiders Out of My Ass"
- My idea. Look for it on FOX.

42% got the right one with "Who Wants to Marry a U.S. Citizen"

According to Reuters, Morusa Media, a Los Angeles company, is touting a new reality game show called "Who Wants to Marry a U.S. Citizen" that aims to create televised matrimony between legal citizens and immigrants who have temporary visas. As in the "Dating Game," which ran on network TV for more than two decades starting in the 1960s, a single U.S. citizen gets to ask contestants various questions. Toward the end of the show, he or she decides which one to select as a potential mate. Well, that sounds boring. I have a suggestion for an elimination round that involves spiders.

Denise's Friday Night Book Club (Book Optional)

THEATER REVIEW




Denise's Friday Night Book Club
Written and Directed by Greg Wendling and Brian Crowley
Friend Productions
Donny's SkyBox Theatre
Fridays at 10:30pm through December 14th
Tickets are $10; $8 for students; $5 TC students

A by-product of The Second City Writing Program and the Skybox Theater has been the development of sketch revues where the writers are separate from the cast. (Most sketch revues are written and performed by the cast.) In many ways, this helps boost the quality of these shows because the writers are focused on writing and the actors are focused on character and scenework. There's typically less ego involved regarding the ensemble, so the show as an overall product gets more attention.

Unlike many sketch revues in Chicago, Denise's Friday Night Book Club doesn't feel slapped together in an Old Country Buffet of mixed themes, styles and quality. Many things about it are just right.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should inform you that Greg and Brian, the writers and directors, are also a part of Robot vs Dinosaur - Chicago. I'm already of fan of their writing. And of them. My fiancee and I have an agreement. She'll go see one live show a month with me. I used to drag her to everything I went to see and it was killing her love for theater to bare witness to the amount of crap I endure. So, when I take her to see a show, I try to make sure it will be of high quality. Brian and Greg's show seemed like a good bet, and it was. We both enjoyed it.

The Denise of the title is a housewife/tyrant who runs a book club with an iron fist. The other ladies are relieved at Denise's ill-fortune of breaking her pelvis and are spending their book club time drinking wine and enjoying each other's company until there's a startling knock at the door. She has sent her whipped husband in her stead with a list of questions about the book and instructions to report back detailed information on everyone's responses.

This scene becomes the spine of the show as we periodically check back in with the club members and their struggle to wiggle out of the Nazi-like clutches of Denise. Most of the scenes deal with issues of power - finding power, losing power, abusing power - all at a very everyday life level. While not at all intending to be satirical in nature, DFNBC manges to show us that the same personality disorders that lead to shady elections and oppressive regimes are very much alive and well and living in middle-America.

One of my favorite scenes from the evening involved to co-workers, Meryl and Regina - performed by Katie O'Brien and Kristen McLaughlin. Kristen's character accidentally swears while making a mistake at the computer. Katie, her cubicle mate, takes this as an opportunity to bond and give herself permission to "unleash." In the hands of less experienced actors and writers, this scene could easily have gone blue quickly and become more about the vulgarity than about Kate's character's undercurrent of desperation to bond with her co-worker.

Less successful was a scene where a man tries to kill himself. Not because of the dark humor, but because of a logic problem with his final decision. I won't give it away because it will also give away the end to the scene. I'll just say, all he had to do was rewind and look up the name. Another scene about a man excusing himself from a business meeting of women to use the bathroom and the women all think he's going to masturbate is well-executed, but doesn't really go anywhere.

Brian and Greg's writing is sophisticated in that most of their scenes are about the characters and their relationships. None of the scenes come across like "here's the funny idea and now we're going to hit you over the head with it for four more minutes than we need to" as many revues do. Their quirky Letterman-like attention to detail tells you that these guys really care about the people whose stories they are telling.

The tricky part about the scenes is that I think they would work better in the hands of more experienced and more mature actors. Some of the scenes, and characters in some of the scenes, that I thought were just okay, might have been more believable and popped in the hands of older actors with more life experience. And that's nit-picking. It's a really good show.

Megan Presslak, Katie O'Brien, and Kristen McLaughlin excel in the (thankfully) multiple female roles Greg and Brian have written for them. Matthew Mages and Josh Shuter have their fine moments -Matthew as a boyfriend who has found a guy just like his girlfriend and Josh as the man accused of doing questionable activities in the restroom- but, at this point in their development, lack the chops to ground all their characters.

There are two shows left, so go see it. Denise's Friday Night Book Club moves in the right direction for sketch comedy revues. Smart, funny and rare in this town.



MINI-REVIEW

MASS RECALL
A Lead-Based Holiday Sketch Comedy Revue
Written by Ritija Gupta, Joseph Jurek, Jessica Murguia and Lauren Vinopal
Directed by Ritija Gupta
Gorilla Tango Theatre
Saturday, December 8th at 6pm
Tickets are $10

Again, in the interest of full disclosure, all of the writers on this show have shown up to RoboWriters on Thursday nights. On one level, it was very exciting for me to see many of the pieces they worked on in the writing group a few months ago being performed to a packed house.

Mass Recall is the first production put together by a group of students still currently in the Second City Writing program. They are full of enthusiasm for sketch comedy and jonesing to put on a show. While certainly rough around the edges, there are a few gems in this show. Scenes where a man has asked Satan - his childhood friend - to be his baby's godfather, a Jane Austen takeoff, and a phone sex call gone awry are all clever and fun and show the potential of this group. The rest of the show tends to be standard sketch and subversive holiday fare relying too much on racial slurs and vulgarity, substituting shock for humor. A few scenes just never find their footing enough conceptually. A scene where a bear on the verge of extinction has potential, especially since the bear turns out to be such an asshole, but it is too heavily plotted and has too many angles it's trying to work. The bear's a blast, though, especially as performed by Scott Fenstermaker.

I admire this group for their moxie and they are worth a look if only for the bragging rights later of "Oh, yeah, I saw them at Gorilla Tango years ago..."



THE BS NEWS QUIZ OF THE DAY

On Friday, I asked...

"Parliamentary candidates in Thailand have been accused of buying votes for an upcoming election using what?"

35% said "Free iPods"
- No, but that might work for buying my vote.

14% said "Free Massages"
- That would be nice. Every election would have a happy ending.

7% said "Free DVDs"
- Even they don't put much value on a pirated Dane Cook movie.

42% are standing at attention with "Free Viagra"

According to the AFP, parliamentary candidates in Thailand's upcoming election are trying to buy the votes of elderly men by passing out free Viagra, a local government official said Friday. Guess it's the modern day equivalent of candidates passing out cigars. In this case, very happy cigars.

Saturday Morning Cartoons!

Nothing speaks Americana to me more than a man in a red, white and blue jumpsuit propelling himself over big things like swimming pools full of sharks on his motorcycle. What a way to earn respect!Stunts by this guy in the 60's and 70's were big news. Even bigger when they weren't successful. I'm sure it led to countless broken arms and legs from kids like me trying to jump over ditches on our bicycles. Yet, I don't recall any parental groups having a freakout over him being a horrible role model. At his peak, everybody loved him.

In "Saturday Morning Cartoons!-style," here's a tribute to the last great daredevil, the recently departed, Evel Knievel.

Search Yourself

ROBOWRITER ASSIGNMENT

A simple idea to get the ball rolling on a new scene. Pick your favorite search engine - Yahoo, Google, Whatever - Dogpile is a good one because it combines several different search engines - and look up your name. You've done it before, now you are getting permission to do it. Create a character based on the people who share your name, but aren't you. Then build a scene around that character. If you have an unusual name and a search engine doesn't bring up anything not you, then try using variations of your name, such as Bill or Billy instead of William. Still nada? Then use the name of a parent or sibling or use your mother's maiden name. When searching my name, I come up with a professor who's an Internet librarian and another guy who's a jazz musician. I might build a scene using one or the other or combine the two. Good luck.



EVERYDAY NORMAL GUY

My brother Don turned me onto this rap genre parody by Jon Lajoie that's pretty funny. I thought at first it was just going to be a pal(er) imitation of "Lazy Sunday," but it stands on its own. Check it out. Contains some harsh language, so crank it up if you are at work.


Every Day Normal Guy Rap Song - Watch more free videos



THE BS NEWS QUIZ OF THE DAY

Yesterday, I asked...

"Due to too little sunshine and exercise, a surprising number of U.S. children are contracting what?"

Nobody thought it was "Gout," "Vapors," or "Gamer's Thumb"
100% nailed it with "Rickets"

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, too little milk, sunshine and exercise is an anti-bone trifecta. For some kids, shockingly, it's leading to rickets, the scourge of the 19th century. But cases of full-blown rickets are just the red flag: Bone specialists say possibly millions of seemingly healthy children aren't building as much strong bone as they should, a gap that may leave them more vulnerable to bone-cracking osteoporosis later. Already there's evidence that U.S. children break their arms more often today than four decades ago, according to a Mayo Clinic study. Of course, I have to stick my two cents in about milk. I edited that part out from the question. I think milk is meant for cows and should only be drank by cows. What kids aren't getting is enough calcium, which is available in ample supply through many leafy green vegetables as well as broccoli, sweet potatoes and oranges. There. I'm off the dairy horse (or cow) now. I only used this question because I like the word "rickets."

Countdown with Keith Olbermann

As a policy, I avoid writing about celebrity gossip. Why? I don't find it interesting and, as a satirical target, it's just too damn easy. Is it really that surprising and jaw-dropping to find out that pop and rock stars have drug problems? That television and film stars have shaky marriages? When I was a kid all the way through my 20's, I dreamed of becoming rich and famous. Now, I just dream of becoming well off and well known. There's no way I would want to be under the scrutiny that today's celebrities have to endure. I, myself, would be easily baited by the paparazzi and you would constantly see short viral videos of me trying to shove a camera up someone's ass. America's obsession with celebrity is morbid. It's what fuels the phenomenon of untalented people becoming famous just for who they are, be they rich socialites or criminals who love the camera. And you can't blame the media on this one. Not entirely. That would be shooting the messenger. It's like the Iraq war. If we didn't fund it, it wouldn't be happening.

Why do I bring this up? Well, Don Hall has turned me into a huge fan of Countdown with Keith Olbermann. It's on MSNBC Monday through Friday at 7pm and at 11pm, Central Time. If you have been needing a Daily Show/Colbert Report fix since the writer's strike started, this is the show to watch. Olbermann is intelligent, cutting, insightful and informative. He is particularly at his best when aiming beautiful and poisonous editorials at the current administration's shredding of the constitution. People we have entrusted with running the country are worthy targets. Not celebrities and their personal lives. Unless they wander into the political arena.

And as much of a supporter and fan that I am of Olbermann, he will, without fail, disappoint me once or twice a week by devoting the number one story to Britney Spears. For the other stories, he often brings in a well-respected journalist or expert to (often) humorously explore the story. With Britney (or Paris, or Lindsay, or fill-in-the-blank), he usually pulls a VH-1 and brings in a sleepy-eyed unshaven comedian who desperately tries to fill the few minutes with their well-rehearsed "off-the-cuff" comments. Barf. It's beneath him. It completely undermines everything Olbermann has done in the hour leading up to it.

So, do watch his show. But if Britney has done something that day kid-related, car-related or underwear-related, skip out on the last five-to-ten minutes. It's painful.



ROBOWRITERS TONIGHT

Back from Thankengiving, the Robowriters return tonight at 6:30pm at the Uptown Writer's Space. Stop on by. Hear funny stuff, read funny stuff, say funny stuff, write funny stuff.



THE BS NEWS QUIZ OF THE DAY

Yesterday, I asked...

"US Judge Robert Restaino has been suspended because he did what when a cellphone went off in his courtroom?"

54% said "Answered it"
- Which would have been beautiful, if it had happened. Sigh.

27% "Threw his gavel at the offender"
- No, but that must be very tempting for a judge. I could see one whipping those gavels like ninja stars and having multiple replacements strapped to their arms under those choir robe sleeves.

No one picked "Threw his own cellphone out the window"
- Guess judges don't litter.

18% picked the right answer "Threw everyone in jail"

And I do mean "everyone." According to the BBC, U.S. Judge Robert Restaino has been removed from the bench for jailing an entire courtroom audience after none of them admitted being responsible for a ringing phone. The judge has said he was under stress in his personal life at the time. It didn't help that the culprit's ringtone was "Achy Breaky Heart."

Clown Wanted

So, I've been looking to bring in extra income over the holidays. "Extra" is not quite the right word. Just plain "income" will suffice. I only get paid when I teach. No classes, no pay. I've been trying to look for prospects beyond the usual Craig's List haunts. Imagine my delight when I ran across this ad...

Charming handsome man with dazzling smile seeks amateur clowns for discreet encounters. No previous sense of humor necessary. Criminal record a plus. Interested? Write to humanresources@whysoserious.com in the full understanding that we have your e-mail address and might send you alarming, disturbing or annoying material at any moment.

Well, without hesitation, I shot them an e-mail from Joe "Skippy the Clown" Janes. Keep your fingers crossed. I found the ad at The Gotham Times.



THE BS NEWS QUIZ OF THE DAY

Yesterday, I asked...

"An Indonesian fisherman named Dede has been suffering from a skin condition that has earned him what nickname?"

30% said "The Chicken Man"
- He's everywhere, he's everywhere!

20% "The Fish Man"
- A fisherman who grew scales. Oh, the sweet, delicious irony!

10% "Lumpy"
- Yes. And he's good friends with Wally and The Beave.

40% got it right with "The Tree Man"

According to the Telegraph, Tree man 'who grew roots' may be cured. Dede, now 35, baffled medical experts when warty "roots" began growing out of his arms and feet after he cut his knee in a teenage accident. Sacked from his job and deserted by his wife, to make ends meet Dede even joined a local "freak show." Fortunately, an American dermatology expert who flew out to Dede's home village south of the capital Jakarta claims to have identified his condition, and proposed a treatment that could transform his life. I've decided to throw all the tree puns aside for this story. It's quite horrifying and Dede has raised two children on his own in poverty while struggling with his condition. Click on the Telegraph link for the rest of the story, pictures and video.

Killing Time

Sometimes after teaching at Columbia, I'll teach a class in the evening at Second City. My Columbia classes end at 4pm and the SC class starts at 7pm. A three hour break. Sounds great, right? It's really not. It's turned into an exercise in killing time without burning through money.

So, yesterday, I took my time getting my body from Point A to Point B. Waiting for the train at the Roosevelt subway platform, I overheard this from a deep, resonant voice about 20 feet away...

"King... Call me 'King'... 'King.' In a deeper tone...There you go..."

I couldn't see the guy and didn't really want to gawk at "King." Later, in the same soothing dulcet tones, he said, "I'm going to punch you in the mouth and knock out all your teeth."

I'm still not sure if this was foreplay or business.

Pre-Second City, I made it to a coffee shop and sat and slowly sipped a small black coffee while I took another chunk out of Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. I have been reading this book in fits and starts for about six months now. It's a great book. Everyone should read it. It should be required reading for politicians, although they might pull the wrong ideas from the material. I read it so inconsistently because it's so darned depressing. Every time I crack it open, there's something that makes my jaw drop to the ground and I end up scraping my chin along the sidewalk for about an hour. I now have a prickly beard made out of scabs and gravel.

Yesterday, I finished the chapter titled The Other Civil War about the class struggles going on in the North and in the South. I was particularly taken with a paragraph about how greedy millionaires were finding ways to profit from the war. One lesson I thought most politicians and businessmen sadly took from WWII is that war is good for business. It's a lesson our current administration knows too well. That's why they are jockeying to make Iraq a perennial cash cow for "American interests." Those "American interests" don't include you and me, by the way. We won't see a dime of it, but we will probably have to give up our social security, welfare and Medicaid to help pay for Bush's war. Turns out that lesson of turning blood into gold goes back much farther than I thought.

Here's the paragraph I read...

White workers of the North were not enthusiastic about a war which seemed to be fought for the black slave, or for the capitalist, for anyone but them. They worked in semislave conditions themselves. They thought the war was profiting the new millionaires. They saw defective guns sold to the army by contractors, sand sold as sugar, rye sold as coffee, shop sweepings made into clothing and blankets, papersoled shoes produced for soldiers at the front, navy ships made of rotting timbers, soldier's uniforms that fell apart in the rain.

No wonder Lincoln was depressed. I'm sure none of that sort of thing happens today. Unless you include things like Hummers lacking armor and soldiers having to rely on their parents to send them adequate bullet-proof vests. That's just the stuff we've heard about.



THE BS NEWS QUIZ OF THE DAY

Yesterday, I asked...

"Tony Vernelli of England had herself sterilized at 27 because she believes babies do what?"

40% said "Suck the life out of you"
- It's true. They do. The little parasites start in the womb and continue through college. Sometimes longer. Right, Dad?

No one picked "Are too expensive" or "Take up too much space"
- Again, both of which are true. The little bastards eat money and just keep growing. If we can have pocket puppies, why can't we have pocket people? Sure would make the birthing process easier.

60% got it right on with "Pollute the environment"

According to the Daily Mail, Toni Vernelli - who works for an environmental charity - had one pregnancy terminated and then had herself sterilized, all to save the planet.

"Having children is selfish. It's all about maintaining your genetic line at the expense of the planet," says Toni. "Every person who is born uses more food, more water, more land, more fossil fuels, more trees and produces more rubbish, more pollution, more greenhouse gases, and adds to the problem of over-population."

Again, I think this calls for the "Pocket People" idea. If humans were smaller, we'd consume less. More for everybody!