One of the most intelligent, hard-working, funniest professional stand up comics working in Los Angeles, California. That's Barbara Gray. She's written the perfect Hollywood stand up comic joke. It's about surviving a break up and going out on a new date at a local restaurant. It also reveals a personality to the audience any casting director would love to see in film. I won't give her joke away...you'll have to find it yourself...just trust me. It's a funny story that combines genius, heart, soul, talent, character and comedic logic into one single ICBM of a joke. Any stand up comic who wants to make it in Los Angeles should study her career with admiration and wonder. I enjoy interviewing comedians. It's an honor to contribute to their success.
Barbara Gray started doing stand-up
comedy in Los Angeles back in 2008, shortly after studying film at
the University of Utah. “I was obsessed with comedy. I wanted to be
in L.A. and do it. I threw myself into the scene doing improv at the
Upright Citizens Brigade.” After performing stand-up at a local
open mic, she was hooked. “I completely went headfirst into doing
stand up and have been doing it every day since then.”
Gray has been performing for audiences
throughout her life. “I had done a lot of theater growing up. I
have an incessant need for attention. As I get older I realize how
much attention I need to survive. I used to feel bad about it, but it
is who I am.” Why does she do stand-up comedy? ”It just felt
right the first time I did it. I was meant to do it. It is cheesy but
making people laugh is incredible. It is a weird, physiological
response that tickles your brain. I love getting this weird noise out
of their body. It is amazing to be able to do that without touching
them physically.”
The young, gorgeous comedian has
already appeared on critically acclaimed shows like Viceland’s
“Flophouse”, Hulu’s “Coming to the Stage”, Comedy Central’s
“Deadliest Chef” and has been a writer for the hit show, “Billy
on the Show.” Success has been sweet, but for Gray the real award
is getting better at making people laugh.” I feel like I’m
getting better. I’m pushing into the next phase. I’m willing to
go up there and just see how it comes out. I can go up onstage and
trust myself. I can talk about anything. I am getting good at comedy
and that is its own reward.”
Sauce is a stand-up comedy show
organized by Gray featuring cutting-edge comics performing in the
back room of a real-life pizzeria, every Friday night at 8pm. “I
really feel special to have that show with my friends.” One of her
friends discovered the place and told Gray about the opportunity to
host a show there. “They had not even been open a year yet.”
DeSano’s Pizza, located at 4959 Santa Monica Boulevard, was a
perfect venue for the group. ”The owner seemed interested in us
bringing new business. The pizza is really great, I have it every
week!”
Lady to Lady is a podcast
featuring Tess Barker and Brandie Posey, two friends and comedians
that have been performing longer than Gray. She describes the show
as, “Pee-Wee Herman mixed with The View and David Lynch.”
“The podcast has taken off,” she says. “We’ve been doing
stuff with Comedy Central.” The three comedians bring on a guest,
usually a woman but men have been on to, who are usually performers
like musicians and other stand-up comics. “The live show is a
parody of a talk show. We’ve even hired a real Oprah impersonator
to take over the show,” Gray says.
While she has had fun with cannabis,
Gray warns that self-control is the best policy. “I used to be a
big stoner, but it turned on me at some point. I had to pull back a
lot. It kind of gave me panic attacks. You have to be careful with
it.” She’s glad that the medicinal plant is becoming legal in
more states throughout the country, because she’s met people with
genuine ailments who have benefitted from its use. “There are so
many people who need it,” she says.
Everyone loves Christmas. It is a time
to be with family, appreciate friends, buy gifts for loved ones and,
of course, watch one of the most important Christmas films of all
time, Die Hard. Most people have missed some important features in
this beloved holiday classic, and because I'm as high as funk on The
Christmas Spirit it is the perfect moment to tell you these things,
for the benefit of future generations.
"The Christmas Spirit" costs $150 an ounce, by the way.
Sure, there are other Christmas films
to watch. Elf. Miracle on 34th Street. White Christmas.
Black Christmas. Argyle Christmas (it's the Irish version of Black
Christmas except the villain is a Red Cap), Scrooged. It's a
Wonderful Life. So why is Die Hard also a Christmas film? Simple. It
takes place near Christmas. The Nakotomi Plaza is having a Christmas
party. When that one evil hacker finally opens the Nakotomi Plaza
safe, Christmas music plays and he even says, "Merry Christmas."
Bruce Willis, as McClane, defeats Snape with holiday wrapping paper.
They even play that Christmas song by Run D.M.C.
Moving right along, Die Hard has some
pretty amazing symbolism going on within the film, a hidden reference
most don't know enough to appreciate, and a message for American
feminists that isn't very nice at all. What am I talking about? Let's
keep reading...but first, if you haven't watched Die Hard yet, please
understand I am going to spoil the frack out of this movie. I'm also
not even going to reiterate the plot, because that's boring for my
average reader, who usually has above average intelligence and has
seen this movie along with the other films and television shows I'm
going to reference.
IN THE SHADOW OF THE VIETNAM WAR
I grew up surrounded by people who had
been in the military during The Vietnam War. You are never going to
understand how it fucked them up completely. Before 'Nam you could
believe in the government. You could believe in corporations. You
could believe in the CIA (ha ha ha just kidding after JFK nobody
believed in the CIA).
What happened in Vietnam changed all
that. People were angry. They had seen friends die. They had followed
orders...and died. They had believed in the draft...and lost friends,
family or died. You can see this absolute hatred for the power
responsible for the loss of life during the Vietnam Conflict in the
decades of film and television that followed. Not merely the
government, but a combination of government and corporate forces
called corporatism, which is just fascism with corporations in charge
of the government. Just ask Nazi Germany.
Magnum P.I.
Most of the main characters of Magnum
P.I. were in 'Nam. Magnum took on wealthy elite government
influencers all the time. The Equalizer was about a man that avenged
people who had been wronged by more powerful entities that were above
the law like the government, corporations or organized crime. The
A-Team fought these people all the time. Knight Rider did the same
thing. So did Spencer for Hire. And Charlie's Angels. Just about
every James Bond movie deals with this problem.
The Equalizer
Wherever an evil government official, evil foreign government (like the USSR), or corrupt businessman
existed, some uniquely good person or group steps up to expose the
wrong doers and punish the guilty...and the guilty usually weren't
small time hoods robbing banks...they were banks, the military
industrial complex, or just greedy, soulless murderers in business
suits, making money from death, immune to prosecution because they
were wealthy elite with government connections.
The bad guys in Die Hard are basically
evil European businessmen with military training and hardware who are
stealing a lot of money from a corporation. That's it. Sure, one of
the FBI agents was in 'Nam, but you really don't have the same
references as another famous American action movie. Snape and company
are just pretending to be terrorists. They do, however, represent the
greedy corporatists blue collar Americans hated for funding wars,
influencing the government, and destroying their economy. They even
sound like Nazis, or the same evil Swiss bankers that laundered
their money.
Because yet another Lethal Weapon movie is being released,
I guess he wasn't getting too old from this sh*t.
LETHAL WEAPON
PARALLELS
Die
Hard and Lethal Weapon
have much in common. It's quite a list. Both films feature a black
man and a white man working together to defeat the enemy while
forming a friendship. Both films feature scenes with helicopters
threatening the main character. The villains in both films are
professional business types. They wear suits and obviously have
military training. Each film has cops taking on well-connected
elites. A car gets shot up by semiautomatic rifles in each film.
Protagonists are stripped bare and tortured. One of the bank robbers
in Die Hard even plays a torturer in Lethal Weapon.
If this man is in the film you are about to watch,
you are about to watch an awesome film, my friend.
There's an
explosion at the end of each film. They both take place around
Christmas. Both films feature two men fighting each other in unarmed
combat, and in both films the bad guys are even blonde. It's as if
somebody watched one movie, kept a checklist, and then threw the
elements into the next film. However, Lethal Weapon has the
unmitigated balls to mention Project Phoenix. Die Hard, however,
doesn't reference The Vietnam War in such a direct way, although at one point an FBI agent mentions participating in the conflict.
Project Phoenix was
pretty fucked up. Basically, rogue elements of the CIA started to
sell heroin in the USA by shipping bags of the stuff back overseas in
the bodies of dead G.I.'s. This really happened and was pretty damn
controversial. Even Marvel's comic book series, The 'Nam, ended up
discussing the dark deed. Lethal Weapon wasn't the only film to do
this.
The 'Nam
ABOVE THE LAW
Although
it can be fairly said that his later films are unrealistic, pretentious and
predictable, Above The Law is
yet another example of a movie that is the shadow of 'Nam. In this
movie Steven Seagal, as the main character, is a former CIA operative (or
maybe asset, but definitely not an analyst like Jack Ryan used to be)
who ends up quitting when he discovers Project Phoenix. Later on he
also uncovers a plot by the CIA to kill a Senator who is messing up
their business.
Like I said, a lot
of films in the 70's and 80's were made by very angry people for
people who were still very angry at their government, corporations
and others for what happened in The Vietnam War. At the end
Seagal basically beats up the CIA, corrupt government officials and
criminal types...and he's basically taking revenge on corporatists
and the military industrial complex...two major players responsible
for the horrific tragedy that was 'Nam.
BLUE COLLAR AMERICA VS. THE FOURTH
REICH
You see, what many
don't know is that after World War II the Nazi elements of the Third
Reich kept going. They had gold. They had connections. While many did
end up dead or in jail, films and books featuring this surviving Nazi
ideology and power structure still being a threat to us all were at
one point very popular in American culture.
Sure, Hitler ended up
dead in ditch as a burning corpse (good, fuck 'em) but people like
Hans Kammler (the Nazi that designed and oversaw the construction of
concentration camps, as well as being in charge of their entire fleet
of submarines) ended up with a lot of money, as did many other
Nazis, and they invested in banks, corporations and pharmaceutical
cartels in order to survive in the dark, long enough to take over
with banking money, psychological propaganda and big business instead
of military might. Politicians, journalists and military experts referred to this cabal as, "The Fourth Reich."
Of course, the
Lethal Weapon bad guys are evil CIA selling heroin to poor American
people, a conspiracy theory proposed by many whistleblowers and
journalists. The Die Hard bad guys are bank robbers disguised as
terrorists who are willing to do mass murder to make money.
Regardless, they are surrogates for the very real, fourth Reich
Nazis American's feared throughout the 70's, referenced in films
such as The Parallax View, Three Days of the Condor, The Boys from
Brazil and Marathon Man.
In Die Hard the good guy is a working class
man, a police officer, taking on professionals in business suits
whose power allows them to operate above the law. Their accents
resemble the same Fourth Reich operatives in Marathon Man. The symbolism
was there for a reason. It's always fun killing Nazis, neonazis, or
the coldhearted bankers that foreclosed on your home right before
Christmas.
WIFE ARGUMENT
As a happily married man that supports
his wife moving up in the professional corporate business world, it
is somewhat alarming to me that McClane starts out the
movie upset at his wife for moving across the country to take a job
at Nakatomi Plaza. She has the kids, too, and he doesn't like that
they are all separated because of her ambition. They even argue about
it, to the point of shouting, right before the robbers take over the
building.
As an unprofessional family therapist
with zero relevant education and no experience whatsoever, my humble
observation is the McClane should chill out. His wife took the kids
to the west coast. They live in a nice house. They even have a maid.
Her job is in Los Angeles. That's where she has to be...there are
really no other options. He's a New York City detective. He could
easily move out to L.A. He could easily join LAPD. In fact, they'd be
amazed to have him. Asking her to grab the kids and move back to New
York City is selfish.
A character so important to the franchise she's gone by Die Hard III.
He should be relocating to join the
family...after all, the money she will make as a business executive
in a firm that has so much money they warrant technologically elite
paramilitary bank robbers kicking in their door tells you she has a
future, not him. What if he gets shot? How much does an NYC detective
make, compared to what she's going to make? She can't move back to
NYC. His argument makes no sense because his wife is right. The
tragedy of this film is that he never admits that to himself, so no
lesson is learned.
SHIVA
The art inside the Nakatomi Plaza is rather odd. The business is basically a Japanese zaibatsu. Why do
they have Chinese and Hindu decorations? You'd expect katanas and
samurai armor. Instead it's a conglomeration of Han era weaponry,
various pieces of art from Asia, and a statue. A very, very important
statue. So important in fact, that at one point it dominates the
screen entirely.
In the scene McClane knows the Nakatomi
plaza has been taken over by bad guys and is making his way through
the place, scanning his surroundings. As the head bad guy, played by
Alan Rickman, taunts him over the radio. When Rickman asks, "Who
are you?" the camera drifts to a statue of Shiva, the Hindu god
of destruction. Not a coincidence. In fact, the statue appears at the
precise middle of the film, 55 minutes and 15-20 seconds in, and it's
the only thing you see, because McClane is completely out of the
scene. It's just Shiva, the Destroyer, staring at you.
Study up on film, cinematography,
symbolism and all that art. Directors don't just film things by
accident and leave it all in randomly. Even on a subconscious level
your mind sees everything, so good directors do their best to
eliminate any imagery antithetical to their story. McClane doesn't
answer, but the statue does. It's the answer to the audience. By the
end of the film, we all know what happens to McClane's enemies,
everything in the building and parking lot. Again, McClane doesn't answer
Snape's question. The camera does.
THE DESTROYER
Have you ever watched the news and
wanted a team of martial artists with near superpower levels of
ability to step into the situation and just murder all the bad guys
that deserve it, even though they are above the law like the big tech
companies, multimedia conglomerates, and evil corporatist masters of
the world you live in? Yeah, so did Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir
so they created a book series about a Korean martial arts master
assassin and his American student doing that. In The Destroyer, every
episode was basically the annihilation of a sacred cow/societal evil
by the two as they cracked jokes about doing so, leaving gallons of
blood on the ground as they did.
Don't worry, they killed enough Nazis and neonazis to fill a cemetery.
The basic premise was that every novel,
I mean, uh, paperback book, was an ultraviolent fantasy where Chiun (which is Hebrew, by the way, for Saturn/star/idol/king),
a Korean master of Sinanju, the ultimate martial art, and his
American trainee, Remo Williams, teamed up to destroy the Mafia,
corrupt politicians, fascists, corporatists, terrorists and anyone
else that had to get horrifically murdered for CURE, a super secret
United States organization set up by JFK (before he died) to
eliminate threats to the country that could not be dealt with by the
usual legal, political or military means, or as Chiun sort of
summarizes, "CURE is an organization that does not exist created
by a President who is dead to protect a Bill of Rights and
Constitution that does not work. All hail the wisdom of the west!"
While the upside was that every book
dealt with a problem that really was something worth destroying, from
terrorists to neonazis to insane genocidal scientists, the downside is that every
episode of The Destroyer was really, really racist, sexist,
homophobic, transphobic, ethnocentric, problematic, patriarchal and
even possibly funkadelic. The books were written in the late 70's and
80's, after the violent political demonstrations of the 60's, the
government corruption, The Vietnam Conflict and everything else, so
they reflected the popular opinions of the time. Unfortunately.
Remo Williams was a white cop from New
York City, so he basically acted and sounded like a blue collar
working class man who kind of didn't give a fuck about corrupt
politicians, businessmen, sensitive people, feminists or anyone else.
Of course, at one point Remo is so dedicated to being an assassin for
Sinanju that he kind of doesn't care that he's even American. Being
completely outside of the social structure of anyone he deals with,
from comedians to actors to military personnel to cultists to
congressmen, means he says what he wants to whoever he wants, making
him the ultimate stand up comic as he delivers one liners that summed
up his jaded, cynical, lower/middle class American mindset.
So while Remo occasionally tells
feminists and minorities to go to Hell, it's Chiun who is really so
problematic you will probably never see The Destroyer series on film
or television. To him all people on Earth are useless subhumans
except for Koreans, and even then only Koreans from his home village,
Sinanju, are worth anything to him. Women are best reserved for
staying home and having babies, preferably boys. He's basically Archie Bunker mixed with Pai Mei from Kill Bill and Kill Bill 2. He only
trains Remo Willliams (who he occasionally refers to as, "A pale
piece of pig's ear") because of his ego...if Chiun can train the
dumbest, most uncoordinated animal on Earth (a white American man) to
be a master of Sinanju, it will make Chiun the greatest Sinanju
master ever since he turned a lump of dung into a diamond.
Like Remo, McClane is a cop from New
York City. They are both blue collar white guys. Here is something
interesting, though. Every once in a while Remo ends up in really
deep mortal danger, so he goes into beast mode. He basically gets
possessed by Shiva, the Hindu god of Destruction. There's even a
speech he gives where Remo announces he's Shiva and proceeds to act
and speak like the deity while he murders everyone around him that
has it coming with even more horsepower and precision. Whether or not
the statue I mentioned earlier in the Nakatomi is a reference to The
Destroyer, it is obviously a reference to the absolute destruction
McClane is about to unleash.
It's worth noting that later on in the series, the attitude Chiun has for Remo changes. He eventually decides Remo is like a son to him. Remo starts to call Chiun, "Little Grandfather." The two start out not liking each other. By the end they are family.
AVATARS
In Hinduism and Shinto an avatar is
simply a human that is also a reservoir for Something Else, whether it
is Shiva, Vishnu, Kali, Ameratsu, or otherwise. This can even be the
spirit of an ancestor. This happens in horror films, when a person is
possessed by a demon. Shinto calls these beings "akitsumikami,"
or, "incarnation of a god."
Avatars of gods happen all the time in
the religions of the far east. Shiva has plenty, from Kereet, an
archer that tested the bravery of Arjuna, to Krishna Darshan, an
avatar the stressed the importance of yoga to humanity. Vishnu has
several as well, from Krishna (some modern Hindus believe Jesus
Christ was just an avatar of Krishna) to Narasimha, a half man, half
tiger warrior who destroys those who persecute religion to Buddha, a
religious icon one can find in Thailand, China and Japan.
Americans can understand avatars,
though. The best superheroes seem to be them. Captain America is an
avatar of the country. Spider-Man seems to be an avatar of spiders.
Batman. Superman. Wonder Woman. Comic book villains are great when
they are avatars, like Electro, who is the avatar of electricity. In
Christianity, the antichrist is basically an avatar of Satan. Some of
the most famous, influential people from history seem to embody a
cause, nation or the times they lived in, which is why we love seeing
films about them, from Nikolas Tesla to Malcom X.
I ditched high school to see this film on opening day,
just like Spike Lee told me to.
That's not to say John McClane
literally becomes Shiva, the Destroyer, when he looks at the statue.
Nobody in the film says this, so it didn't happen. What's more
important is that the director introduced the concept of Shiva, so
this includes concepts such as spiritual possession and incarnation.
Whether it's actually happening is meaningless, the symbolism tells
our brains all we need to know.
NAKATOMI
Poor Joseph Takagi gets shot early on
in the film. He's like a human sacrifice that gets the brawl rolling.
His name means, "tall tree." Joseph, in Christianity, is
the father of the avatar of God. The name Nakatomi is more
interesting. In Japanese history the Nakatomi clan is synonymous with
Shinto, since the family includes a lot of famous priests in their
history and have close relations with the divine Emperor. There's
also a lot of samurais. So Nakatomi isn't just a name, it's carefully
selected to get us to think of spiritual combat, sohei (warrior
monks), possession, avatars and destruction. Considering what the
occult says about possession, it's easy to consider that part of the
reason McClane does so well against his adversaries is because the
spirit of the Nakatomi clan is with him.
PROBLEMATIC ANTIFEMINIST TRUTHS
While Die Hard is a film about one man
taking on an army of elite, better educated, better equipped, better
prepared and better dressed European bureaucrats, it's also a film
about a man arguing with his wife about how she moved to the west
coast with the kids and left him because she got a job at Nakatomi
Plaza. They argue about this, and then they stop. There is no verbal
resolution to this disagreement.
It would have been nice if McClane had
just decided to swallow his pride and follow his wife. She's the
primary breadwinner, so enjoy the toast, pal. He's a hero to LAPD, he
already has a best friend on the force, he's famous, moving west
would be the best. But nooo...there is no conversation that solves
the issue. He doesn't concede to her point. There is zero compromise.
Even if the hero of the film isn't right, by the end he is because of total destructive force, not logic.
"You know what honey, you're right! Go ahead and keep your job."
A HAPPY CONCLUSION OF TOTAL DESTRUCTION
When you summon a god of destruction
like Shiva, you get results. By the end of the film it isn't just the
bank robbers that are destroyed. Everything is destroyed. A
helicopter. A police car. An armored vehicle. The Nakatomi Plaza. The
parking lot. Their money and stocks. Many members of the LAPD and the FBI. Their CEO. Many cops. McClane's
wife's job (Where is she going to work now? Her boss is dead, the
corporation is annihilated, even their stocks and lost...and who in
the business world would want to hire a person involved in such a
controversial tragedy?). He didn't just win the argument, McClane
(that is, The Destroyer) took out the very fundamental reason for the
argument. He destroyed everything. The final shot of the film
reinforces this fact.
May as well move back to New York City,
New York, right?
The end.
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If you peruse this website carefully,
you'll notice that I have interviewed at least more than five very
successful musicians/bands that have created timeless music, like
Digitalism, Imagine Dragons, Bone-Thugs-n-Harmony, Mac Miller, Steve
Aoki and others. So it has been said by wise elders in the industry
that this writer understands what good music is. That's probably why,
according to this website, I'm rich!
This website lies so bad that not only does it lack an ass, it's pants are very much on fire.
With this on the brain we ponder, why
listen to Pyncher? Who are they? What do they want? How do they
sound? Should we fear them? I was terrified of what would happen, if
my ears didn't experience Pyncher. You just can't sit around in your
house, all alone, listening to bands like The Misfits, Agent Orange,
The Cramps, Black Flag, Dead Kennedy's, Sonic Youth, and Black Market
Baby. It's demoralizing.
Pyncher, keeping it real.
One must experience either new music,
or inevitable entropy. That's the truth. I knew a guy once that just
listened to old Soundgarden albums until he morphed into a stained, slightly damaged Styrofoam litter bucket full of dented cans of Coors Lite
beer. It was disconcerting. Personal evolution means answering your
email to hear more mighty musical majesty, at least for me. New music
helps us transcend old consciousness.
Pyncher rocks.
"Dirty Feet," a brand new
single by Pyncher that they will release this Friday, reminds me of The Beatles. Woah! Calm down! What I
mean is that the reason we keep listening to that band is because
they had figured out a killer formula: each song The Beatles made is
actually three songs. That was their secret. Pyncher utilizes that
same power in their new, ferocious single that is an audio odyssey
worthy of the ears of Oddyseus.
Like a fine film with three acts,
"Dirty Feet" goes beyond the usual formula to tell a story.
The song starts fast with a howl that could make Alan Ginsberg happy,
introduces background feedback throbbing with sonic power,
electrifies with drippy, surf-worthy guitar licks that would make
Dick Dale cry, and suddenly stops to cruise across semi-familiar
landscapes of fast audio adventure, only to transform again, evolving into
a final crescendo worth 4 mintues and 23 seconds of your good time.
Pyncher is a solid rock band from
Manchester in the United Kingdom, where Britain comes from. I had the
honor of getting some words from the band about their new tour de
force single. "I write the main foundation of each song,"
says Sam, who plays guitar and supplies vocals. "Harvey plays
lead guitar, Jack plays drums, and Britt bass." Time and work
went into this creation. "I wrote the riff in July and it sat
there over the summer. Everything else I did just before we had a
rehearsal."
"Then as we do with most of our
songs, Harvey, Britt and Jack added their bits. I had the vocals done
for the verse but the chorus was a matter of trying new things in
rehearsal until I got what I wanted." This craftsmanship shows.
Epic songs have layers hiding dimensions. "I started the lyrics
with a story in mind, but I don't know what's happened to that.
There's a story somewhere in the song. I'm not too sure about the
meaning."
Music is personal, even for the
listener. It's OK to hear a song and decide it's meaning is different
for you than it is for others. Sam knows. "I like to write with
ambiguity as I intend on people all having different ideas of what
they could mean. More often than not, the music comes first and then
I'll take lots of listens to the demo or recording before the lyrics
are there."
"Dirty Feet" will please fans
of Pyncher that have been looking forward to a new single which has
everything we enjoy about the music they play. It's hard to earn the
mad skills necessary to be damn good. Harder still to combine so much
genius properly into one audio creation that features them all. "A couple of our
songs are written around some lyrics I've got and that's always a bit
harder for me, but fun." Sounds awesome to all of us. Play it
again, Sam.
