A War On Comedy? Nah. A List of "Comedians" I Will Slap On Sight? Oh Yeah.
Laugh it up, laughing boys. My pimp hand? Strong. And my memory long. So welcome to the periodic airing of grievances. A welcome break from the firestorm that is now America's public life.
Everybody loves that last act of the afterschool special. The kumbaya one where everyone forgives everybody for everything and valuable lessons are learned about forgiveness, mercy and how how they are dolloped out by our better angels.
I called bullshit on that as soon as I was able to call bullshit on just about anything.
Because even as a kid the onion-skin thin premise just beggared belief for me. The whole thrust of Judeo-Christian thought that the high road was a much better look than the lower road, did not ring true to me pretty much…well, for just about forever.
How many times did you actually need to see the innocent corrupted, the good ambushed and the great go unrewarded, while their lesser counterparts push lives of luxury, to be able to fathom a guess that that TV ending is for the fucking birds?
Just once, for me.
Specifically on and around the first time I had sex which was a perfect night of infidelity, shame and sadness and in a plot twist to end all plot twists, ended with the gyre turning and me inverting all of that on its head for the win. Fade to black, roll credits.
Realistically though, things just get worse. Minor misunderstandings turn into acts of war. Acts of war are harbingers of the apocalypse, now and forever.
And here’s where our zigs turn into zags because, you see, this should make us happy. Or at the very least happier. Because wouldn’t it be too much of a burden to bear of me hating everyone for being them while hating myself for hating them?
Yeah, we’re going to economize while ignoring the dictum that the opposite of love is not hate but indifference. Economize and recognize that if it weren’t for well-founded hatreds many of us would not have made it as far as we have in life. So forthwith, a list of shit I’m not willing to let go of. Make of this what you would.
JACK BLACK
Let’s start off by saying “fuck Jack Black”. Not for buckling to social pressures in putting Tenacious D to bed when his partner just said what many of us were thinking. No, that would make sense. Having lunch with him in 1994 or thereabouts sealed the deal here. We were introduced by, who I later found out was, his ex.
Which I guess gave him license to be savagely rude to me on the outside chance, I guess, that I was the new beau.
He asked questions, interrupted the answers, asked the same questions again, rinse, repeat, all to, at the time a generalized amusement on my part. Which enflamed him and drove him to even greater acts of rudeness, which also amused me. What didn’t amuse me though? Much later, when for a period of time he had become one of what we like to call “America’s Darlings”. That class of irrepressible clowns that the country loves right up until they don’t anymore.
I had decided at that point that I would pay him back, retroactively, for his acts of rudeness. The fee? A sharp slap across the face.
“Jack Black was there.”
“Where?”
My wife screwed up her face, like I was the crazy one. “He was right behind you.”
I had been at the San Francisco Comedy Festival performing music from Repo Man with the Red Room Orchestra at the Great American Music Hall. Backstage there I’d had a long conversation with a guy who just introduced himself as “Bruce”. In the car ride home I realized it was Bruce Campbell, from Evil Dead most significantly for me. I’m a huge fan but recognized him not at all.
“Yeah, he was standing there behind you when you were talking to that Bruce guy.”
And I remembered that there had been a short, fat, gray bearded fellow standing there looking like a busted Wavy Gravy. I had missed my shot that day but my thirst for interpersonal revenge is not slaked, not even a little bit here. Should I be a bigger man and forget this?
The prognosis is: not likely.
DAVID CROSS
I know, I know. It seems strange to have two comedians on my Hate List. Makes it seem like it’s not them. That maybe, just maybe, it’s me, really, and not them at all. That I’m the Guy Who Can’t Take a Joke, but that’s not the case at all. I’ve done standup a few times myself and have a deep appreciation for those that do it.
Cross was one of those. So imagine my surprise when I was working at NAMM (or AES, always got those two confused), a convention for people on the production side of music recording. I had been editor-in-chief of EQ Magazine, and my goal was to spread the gospel far and wide: everything we heard that was recorded was guided by invisible hands and we where there specifically to pay tribute to those hands.
But Cross was here and I liked him enough that this should have been a slam dunk.
“Hey man,” I opened with. “Love your work.”
“Yeah.” There was something wrong. A dead-eyed surety that temporarily led me to believe that we had met before and I had clumsily done him dirty. His “yeah” sounded like an entreaty to fight.
“Well, um…I was thinking it would be cool to have you in the magazine some time. I’m editor in chief of EQ,” I said, passing across a business card.
“Yeaaahhhh…” he drew this out, and shifted a bit. His bodyguard leaned a little bit closer too. “…Well, we’ll see.”
Reading what he said sounds convivial enough. But none of his personal presentation was. So bad, it was, that I had dropped any pretense of being a sane editor-in-chief and just went straight for the hostility that is my constant handmaiden.
Which is to say from this point on it was all silent projection. I leaned in, he stood still, his bodyguard leaned in, and I said nothing. With my mouth. With my eyes? I said all of what needed to be said, “yo, bitch…I’ll fuck you both up. With a quickness and no regard for whoever the hell it is you think you are.”
And on the completion of that thought I figured I should just keep it moving. But did he get to me? Yeah, he got to me. And when I see him again? I’ll repeat this story and bring it right up to where we left off. Pimp hand first.
THE SKLAR BROTHERS
I didn’t know who these guys were before I met them. Had not seen their work. Didn’t know their work. All I had been told is that they had some podcast, and they were comedians. I like comedians, I thought. This should go well.
So down to Los Angeles I trundled. For some reason, a reason that’s hazy to me now, Mr. Marcus the porn star showed up to hang out with me. I think I was scheduled to interview him later for my (now-defunct) podcast, OZY Confidential.
The show went off without a hitch. Droll badinage, quips and all manner of funny guy shit. We took pics in the lobby (they seemed duly impressed with the presence of Mr. Marcus), and I went on my way.
Post-interview the normal deal was adhered to. We became IG friends. Where it was that a pictured posted by one of them drew my attention for some reason. It was a photo from a baseball game they had played. In the comments I made some passing joke about his “gut”. Which was quickly followed by a response: “Gut?”
Laughing — because we were all joking here right? — I write, “Yeah. That thing hanging over your fucking belt, bro.”
Radio silence. And then the kicker: our episode had been shit canned. From their Dumb People Town podcast.
Hahahahahaha….what is with these LA types? Good at dishing, not so good at taking it.
But there will be no reprisals here. Yeah, I’m totally ok leaving this one where it lay. No slaps necessary. And everyone lives happily ever after.
Heeeeyyy…we got our selves a happy ending?!?!
We certainly do now. Very possibly the finest afterschool work The Sklars have ever done, hahah…ahhhh….life.
And if books are still your thing and you still do books, please do this one…the memoir A Walk Across Dirty Water and Straight Into Murderer's Row, from Amazon…Or the Bookshop.Org dealie: Here?
And if you’d like to book a book show? Please DM.
