Month: January 2011

Friday Random Crap

by jaredsterncomedy, posted in Bollywood, comedy, Dateline, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Jared Stern, Ninja, Today Show

Hey there, ‘Redheads… It’s finally Friday and this whole regular blogging thing is still humming despite my obvious lack of content. I was watching the Today Show this morning and they did a story on duct cleaning scams with Chris Hanson from Dateline. They had him pop out in some lady’s basement to confront a shady duct tech. I bet that guy was too busy frantically thinking about every email and IM he’s ever sent to concentrate on his shoddy workmanship.

Here are two videos that’ll make your face melt, they’re so awesome. First, here’s a video of what I can only imagine is a ninja in his spare time…

This video pretty much tells Isaac Newton to go fuck himself. For this guy, gravity might as well be a speed limit sign. He can’t drive 55. The next video is a piece of Bollywood brilliance, Endhiran…

Not even Michael Bay, in his wildest fever dreams, could come with something that insane. And how bad ass is that guy? He looks like Deepak Chopra’s evil twin, ridding himself of negative emotions one bullet at a time. I’d actually like to see him take on the guy from the first video.

For those of you in the Arlington, VA area, I picked up a fill-in MC gig over at the Arlington Drafthouse tonight and tomorrow. Yeah, you only get about 5 minutes of me, but Tim Miller and Orny Adams will the there to pick up the slack.

See you Monday…

Diggin’ Out

by jaredsterncomedy, posted in Bill Paxton, Christopher Lee, comedy, Dan Aykroyd, Eric Stoltz, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Jared Stern, Kenny G, snow, trivia

Hey there, ‘Redheads… Is everyone enjoying your snow day? Unfortunately, I had to go to work today, but since everybody else was socked in, my commute was a breeze. A stiff cold breeze. But the roads were clean and clear. I guess people didn’t abandon their cars on my route to work. I can’t believe people did that. Maybe I’m just spoiled with four-wheel drive, but in blizzard conditions, I’d rather be in a heated metal shell than out. How do all you snooty Prius owners feel about our gas guzzlers now, huh? The environment doesn’t care what you’re trying to do for it. Case in point, my buddy Nick, who swapped his hybrid with his mother’s 4×4 to make sure his car didn’t slip into an embankment. While he was able to get around during the storm, a tree fell an crushed his hybrid in his mom’s driveway. What I’m saying is, you owe it to yourself to put nature in it’s place. Go spray some aerosol.

I’d like to get in on the snowings-on, so I think I’ll attempt a roof deck snowman when I get home. Happy to not be one of the 400,000 people without power in the DC area. If I were still living at the former Stately Stern Manor, I’d probably be in Amish country too. Hopefully, you’re still able to read the blog by candlelight.

For those of you who gave my trivia questions a go, here are the answers…

1. Who is the only actor that has been killed by a Terminator, an Alien, and a Predator? That would be Bill Paxton, who bought it in Aliens, Predator 2, and he was in Terminator. He was one of the punks that Arnold killed for their clothes in the beginning…

2. What movie did Steven Speilberg give Dan Aykroyd a cameo in to thank him for putting Speilberg in Blues Brothers? Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Aykroyd is the guy that greets Indy at Lao Che’s air field.

3. Who was originally cast as Marty McFly in Back to the Future, but was fired three weeks into filming and replaced by Michael J. Fox? Eric Stoltz.

4. Who holds the world record for playing the longest note ever recorded on a saxophone? Kenny G, who, using circular breathing, held an E-flat for 45 minutes and 47 seconds.

5. Which living actor has made the most films to date? Not Samuel L. Jackson. Not even close. He only has 107 films to his credit. The correct answer is Christopher Lee, who at the age of 89 has appeared in over 260 films.

Hope you liked ’em. Maybe we’ll make this a regular feature on here. Or not. See you Friday.

Bloggin’ in a Winter Wonderland

by jaredsterncomedy, posted in comedy, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Jared Stern, snow, trivia

Hey there, ‘Redheads… Well, I guess the people in the snow business finally got their bulk shipment in. Everyone’s inner five year old roots for the white stuff until it snarls traffic and keeps your outer thirtysomething on the beltway for three hours. It sure is pretty, though. I usually host a trivia night in Bethesda on Wednesday nights, which got shelved because I place a higher priority on not dying on a drive home to Capitol Hill at 10pm. My priorities are way out of whack. Since I didn’t get a chance to ask pointed pointless questions for points, why don’t I lay some triviality on you, the snowbound reader? That question was rhetorical and does not count. Try not to google the answers…

1. Who is the only actor that has been killed by a Terminator, an Alien, and a Predator?

2. What movie did Steven Speilberg give Dan Aykroyd a cameo in to thank him for putting Speilberg in Blues Brothers?

3. Who was originally cast as Marty McFly in Back to the Future, but was fired three weeks into filming and replaced by Michael J. Fox?

4. Who holds the world record for playing the longest note ever recorded on a saxophone?

5. Which living actor has made the most films to date?

Answers tomorrow. ‘Til then…

State of Me

by jaredsterncomedy, posted in boehner, comedy, gym, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Jared Stern, State of the Union

Hey there, ‘Redheads… I, like alot of you, just got done watching the State of the Union address. In order to spice up the proceedings, I drank every time John Boehner got weepy. I am hammered. Man, he did not look happy when Obama brought up clean energy. This doesn’t make any sense to me. He’s so tan, you’d think he’d be pro-solar power. Boehner is so orange, he makes Snooki look like Gwyneth Paltrow. When Obama started talking about how the space race spurred such growth back in the 60’s, I was hoping he’d say, “…which is why I propose we put a man on Mars before the North Koreans do!” I thought it was a good speech, but with the intermingled seating between parties, it was tough to tell which side agreed with him. I always enjoyed the lopsided standing ovations of States of the Union past, one side on their feet, while the other side has their arms crossed and bitter beer faces. But enough about the Union. Let’s get to the state of me.

I’m not sure what’s gotten into me lately, but this is the second night in a row I’ve gone to the gym. My girlfriend got a Groupon for a one month membership to Results, so now I aim to get some. I’ve started slow, literally, I’m power walking on the treadmill. Two and a half miles over randomly inclined terrain at a brisk 3.5 speed setting. I know, I’m an animal. A sloth. I had to keep myself from laughing when a woman in her sixties got on the treadmill next to me. Here I am, at 3.5, with a variable incline of 0 to 1.5, and I look over to see her at 3.6 at a steady incline of 7. Maybe I’ll try a water aerobics class tomorrow. Anyway, it’s a start. I’ve stayed steady with the blog, so maybe I can stick with this and mold this tub of goo into something that resembles abs. Let’s just go for one ab. Baby steps. In fact, I half expect a toddler to bench more than me at this point.

See you Wednesday…

301

by jaredsterncomedy, posted in Aliens, Christopher Walken, comedy, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Jack LaLanne, Jared Stern, NFL, playoffs

Hey there, ‘Redheads… I hope everyone found a way to keep warm over the weekend. Man it’s cold. It’s like Antarctica cold. Nanook couldn’t take this kind of cold. It’s toughest on the homeless, though I haven’t seen any garbage can fires. I hope they realize, for the environment’s sake, it’s much more responsible to set fire to a recycling bin. ***The more you know…

I huddled up with some friends in front of a glowing movie theater screen at midnight on Saturday to let Aliens soothe my shivers like a cup of hot cocoa. My girlfriend could not understand why I was spending $10 to see a movie that I own on DVD. I’ve seen it more times than I can count. It’s on my iPod. I could do a one man show of nothing but Aliens quotes. That’s not the point. Never pass up an opportunity to see a classic flick on the big screen. Speaking of which, Airplane! is coming back to theaters for two days next week, 1/29 @ 12:30pm and 2/1 @ 7pm, at select AMC theaters. Do yourself a favor and spill a couple popcorn kernels in the aisle for Leslie Nielsen.

I finally fine tuned my powers of prognostication and picked a peck of pickled playoff peppers with the Packers and Pittsburgh. After going 2-2 the first two rounds, I managed to go 2-0 this weekend. The question is, will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 6-4? Both games were pretty entertaining to watch. The Pack went through Chicago quarterbacks like kleenex and good luck getting the image of B.J. Raji’s touchdown celebration dance out of your head. When he gyrated his yellow spandex clad ham hocks, he damn near affected the tides. In the other game, apparently, the Jets’ flight got delayed until halftime, because that’s when they decided to show up and play. They almost came back, but then Ben Roethlisberger did what he does best and forced his way to victory. I’ve got a new nickname for Mark Sanchez. Sisyphus. Sanchez is cursed to push Rex Ryan up a hill, only to watch him roll back down. By the way, thanks to Jim Nance for saying , “Roethlisberger pulled out early” on a fumbled snap. They won’t show that highlight on Sports Center.

Some sad news this morning as fitness pioneer Jack LaLanne died at the age of 96. The irony is, if I went to the gym today, I’d come back feeling like a 96 year old man. According to his wishes, he’ll be juiced.

Over the weekend, the real time action flick, Nick of Time came up in conversation. While it wasn’t a great flick, it contains one of the better cinematic Christopher Walken moments of all time. I’ll leave you with that and two other classics for your viewing pleasure…

See you Tuesday…

Milestoned

by jaredsterncomedy, posted in Bart Scott, comedy, Guinness Book of World Records, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Jared Stern, Jets, Magooby's, playoffs

Hey there, ‘Redheads… This post is about milestones, two arbitrary and one that belongs in an episode of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not (wow, I’m old). Let me rattle a few off for you. This is the 300th installment of the blog (only took me 5 1/2 years). As of yesterday’s post, the blog passed the 26,000 hit mark (most of those are me constantly clicking on the blog to see how many hits I have). And, the most important one, one that will be inscribed in the annals of history, Magooby’s Joke House in Baltimore broke the Guinness World Record for Longest Continuous Comedy Show last night. 81 hours of comedy. An hour and a half of which was my brand of mild amusement. I had the good fortune of having some cherry time slots. 8pm is a perfectly normal time for comedy. Kudos to my comedy comrades who got on stage at noon or 4am. That’s when comedy is passed out. According to the rules, there had to be at least ten people in the audience, and at those times, that’s about all that was there. Apparently, over the 81 hours, we averaged 42 people a show. That was helped by the near sell out crowd we had for the final three hours. Here’s my set from last night. The video has the tail end of Jim Meyer’s set, then me, then Ayanna Dookie. There’s some new stuff in there, but I had to play the hits to fill the half hour.

Since there were so many comics involved in this, I’m thinking we should get a plaque or a trophy with everyone’s name on it to commemorate. A Comedy Stanley Cup, or something. Anyway, thanks to everyone who came out and supported us. The fact that a club in Timonium was able to break a record that was held by a club in L.A. really says something about the comedy scene ’round these parts. And it was all for a great cause. I think we raised over $30,000 for Special Olympics. That’s my good deed for the year.

I neglected to mention my playoff pick results on Monday. Once again, I went 2-2. I was right about it being a bad weekend for things that fly. All of the birds went down like a game of Duck Hunt. All that was missing was that dog to laugh at them…The one game that no one picked was the Jets-Patriots tilt. Tom Brady and the Pats crapped in their hat (almost sounds like a Dr. Seuss book). The Jets talk more trash than Oscar the Grouch, so it was nice to see them actually back it up, even though I picked the Pats. The game will probably be remembered best for the epic on-field post game interview that Bart Scott gave to Sal Pal…

So, in the hopes that I can continue my .500 playoff pick record, let’s pull out the magic dart board and look at the championship match-ups for this weekend. In the NFC, I’ve been picking the cheeseheads this long, so I don’t see any reason to jump off the wheel of gouda at this point. In the AFC, as fun as it would be to have Rex Ryan in the SuperBowl, just for the quotes in the two weeks leading up to it, I gotta go with Big Ben and the Steelers. Besides, I can’t think of two teams that’d piss off Jerry Jones more to have in his house on the NFL’s biggest night.

See you Monday… Can’t wait!

Idol, a Try

by jaredsterncomedy, posted in American Idol, comedy, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Jared Stern, Magooby's

Hey there, ‘Redheads… On Tuesday, I offered you a peek into the future of reality competition shows. An innocent looking Luvs commercial…

It’s a metaphor for all of these shows. We judge the crap that comes out of people. And the one that mirrors the Luvs commercial the most is the recently revamped American Idol. I will admit that I only caught a very brief bit of the show last night. Thankfully, it was on DVR so I could beep boop past all of the self-aggrandizing introductions of the new judges, right to the auditions. That’s the meat of this first wave of episodes that we judgmental jackals drool over. We delight in watching the deluded masses get a reality check and get told that their years of training by singing in the shower hasn’t prepared them for super stardom. When they introduced the new panel, my first thought was, “Wow, Kara DioGuardi looks like shit.” Turns out that was Steven Tyler. Idol had a tough job of restoring the great balance of mean and overly nice/batshit crazy that Simon and Paula provided. Well, they got it half right. Now batting for batshit crazy is Steven Tyler, who looks and sounds like Gary Busey in drag. And in the role of overly nice, we have Jenny from the block. Essentially, they cut Paula in half (lithium poured out) and, like a Fantasia broomstick, both halves grabbed a bucket and began stumbling around. Randy is still there, but only so people can play the “dog” drinking game. The panel is now nice and batshit crazy without the harsh truth to pop the bubbles. The monster has had its teeth pulled and its meds doubled. Like I said, I saw about five minutes through my drooping eyelids, so maybe I just need to give it an awake and alert chance before I pass judgment, but where’s the fun in that?

Tonight is the home stretch of Magooby’s world record comedy marathon. I’m on at 8:00pm. The show is FREE. They just ask that you donate to Special Olympics. Get some bulk laughter and watch comedy history get made.

See you there…

Catnip

by jaredsterncomedy, posted in Anne Hathaway, Batman, Catwoman, comedy, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Jared Stern, Magooby's

Hey there, ‘Redheads… Big news has hit the interwebs about the third Batman flick. It was announced that Anne Hathaway will play Catwoman. Reaction that I’ve seen has been mixed. I’m going to reserve judgment on how she’ll be able to pull it off. When I first heard that Heath Ledger was cast as the Joker, I couldn’t see it, and his performance won a Batman movie a goddamn Oscar. Don’t get me wrong, two thumbs way up for Anne Hathaway in a skin tight catsuit, but that’s only part of Selina Kyle’s charm. Catwoman is an iconic character. Just ask Halle Berry. I’m sure her performance will put her somewhere between Eartha Kitt and Michelle Pfeiffer in the pantheon. I wish I thought of it first, but fellow DC area comic Mike James said, “Apparently all you have to do to be a Batman villain is bone Jake Gyllenhaal in a previous movie.” Hilarious.

Speaking of hilarious, do yourself a favor and check out the waning hours of Magooby’s attempt to break the world record for longest continuous comedy show. I had a great time on stage last night and watching my comedy comrades, Ayanna Dookie, Rob Maher, Sonny Fuller, and Mike Way, in action. Your last chance to watch me do my part in this herculean effort is tomorrow night at 8pm. Check me out, then hang out to watch the record get busted at 11:30. Like you really have anything better to do. And it’s for charity. Free bulk comedy and you can feel extra good about laughing at what our twisted minds come up with. About five years back, the standard credit for any comic in the Baltimore area was being an extra on The Wire. Co-holder of this record will replace that.

See you manana… Doo doo de doo doo…

C is for Crap

by jaredsterncomedy, posted in babies, comedy, diapers, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Jared Stern, Magooby's, poop

Hey there, ‘Redheads… I saw something truly horrifying on TV yesterday. Given the amount of raw horror that spills out of the tube on a regular basis and how numb we’ve become to it, we’re not easily shocked anymore. Birds fall out of the sky? Ho hum. We’re jaded. But this nugget of odium came from an unlikely place: a diaper commercial…

Oh sure, it looks like a cute commercial, but think about what you just watched. A judged contest to see which child can take the more massive crap, on a stage in front of cheering fans that are snapping cell phone pictures. You see a cute baby cartoon. I see a grim window into the future of televised reality competitions. This does seem like the next logical step after competitive eating. And sure, some people in the crowd are there to cheer on their favorite baby but, just like people watch NASCAR to see the crashes, some sick bastards are there just to see a rupture. And in our world of manufactured celebrity, somebody will try to pass this off as a genuine spectator sport. Hey, everyone does it, right? UPS could sponsor. ABC will pass on it and FOX will add it to the line up after American Idol. You just watched and voted on people singing, now watch and vote on what comes out the other end. Yeesh.

Don’t let crap like that infect your soul. Come out to Magooby’s tonight to cleanse your soul with some comedy and charity. Right now, they’re roughly 22 hours into the 81 hour marathon. They need audience members. The show is FREE. Just drop something in the bucket for Special Olympics and you get as much comedy as you can handle. I’m on at 8pm tonight, followed by Ayanna Dookie, Rob Maher, and Mike Way.

See you there…

MLK Shake

by jaredsterncomedy, posted in comedy, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Jared Stern, Magooby's, Martin Luther King

Hey there, ‘Redheads… Sorry for the last minute post that I have no excuse for because I had the day off from work. I just slid into home after a harrowing ride on the frozen tundra that is 295 from Baltimore to DC. I saw several cars that had done a triple lutz into an embankment or into a jersey wall. I’m just glad I got back in time to keep the blog going for you. See what I do for you? Anywho, I hope everyone enjoyed their MLK Day. I spent the day scratching the i’s out of every “Got Milk?” poster that I could find. I also met up with some friends at the American History museum. I paid tribute to another tireless civil rights advocate, Kermit the Frog. It wasn’t easy being green, people. Martin Luther King’s message still rings true today. You shouldn’t judge people by the color of their skin, when there are so many other reasons to judge people.

I just got back from my first contribution toward breaking the world record for longest continuous comedy show at Magooby’s. Things are off to a swimming start. They were at the eight-hour mark when I left. Just 73 more hours to go. Apparently, the whole thing is being broadcast on UStream, so go ahead and click the link if you’d like to satisfy your morbid curiosity and peek in on what a comedy show at 4:30 in the morning looks like. Please to also check out a chunk of the show live. Support the effort. Support comedy. Support the Special Olympics.

See you in a bit…