Public Acknowledgement That I Am At Least Somewhat Funny

I just learned (and I mean less than two minutes ago) that my play, Who Stole the Christmas Spirit?, was a semi-finalist in the 2015 McLaren Memorial Comedy Play Writing Competition. See http://www.mctmidland.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-Current-Standings.pdf for details. While I would obviously have liked to have been a finalist or zee beeg wiener, semi-finalist is not the worst thing that ever happened. So, yay!

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The places to hear from me, albeit sporadically:
Food – josh lubarr food stuff
Geekiness – geekiness(josh lubarr)
Movies – Old Movies and New with Josh Lubarr
Politics – Progressive Politics (per Josh Lubarr)
Silliness and comedy – Le Repository du Silliness, avec Josh Lubarr
Favorite movies – The Pantheon
Places – Good Things around Boston, and Elsewhere
Me generally – Josh Lubarr’s web site extraordinaire
Also also – Josh’s Part of lubarr.com

The End of Dave, Actually the End of an Era

I've been surprised to find myself sad about David Letterman's retirement, but I am. I have vivid and fond memories of watching him in the late 'eighties after Carson, particularly of a moment when he walked up to the camera, rapped on the glass, and told us -- all of us, the viewers of America -- to pay attention. At this point, it's a truism that he re-created the late night talk show, but there's something about the way he undermined norms that was part of a larger shift. He sort of did for TV what Spy magazine did for graphics -- not just that what we take for granted now was quite radical then -- but that he and they brought a kind of smart, mischievous tenor to the table. I guess it's what we could have expected from people raised on Mad magazine (speaking as someone raised on Mad magazine), though the meta quality was and is of a different order. (I'm reminded of a Top Ten list which they interrupted to discuss the predictably variable quality of the jokes at different positions of Top Ten lists.)

A couple of thoughts about his last show (5/20/15) -- it was nice that he stuck to mostly the usual format; I remember wishing that Johnny had done that for his last show. Also, his show on Tuesday (5/19/15) had a montage of Rupert Jee that had some of the funniest bits I've seen in a long time.

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The places to hear from me:
Food – josh lubarr food stuff
Geekiness – geekiness(josh lubarr)
Movies – Old Movies and New with Josh Lubarr
Politics – Progressive Politics (per Josh Lubarr)
Silliness and comedy – Le Repository du Silliness, avec Josh Lubarr
Favorite movies – The Pantheon
Places – Good Things around Boston, and Elsewhere
Me generally – Josh Lubarr’s web site extraordinaire
Also also – Josh’s Part of lubarr.com

I Didn't Know There'd Been a Change to the Bill of Rights

In case you were concerned that the Internet was just a pile of useless information (for example, this blog), I learned something verrry useful while wasting time looking at a real estate listing: apparently, the right of assembly has been rescinded. In a listing of recent police activity, I saw the following:

Now, there may be other explanations:

• It's actually been the right to free speech that's been rescinded, not the right of assembly. (After all, the right of assembly was always one of those C-list rights anyway.)
• The speech was so bad that it was prosecuted as literally an assault on the audience's ears.
• The L is a typo and it was an indecent exposure arrest.
• There were a bunch of people in one place, so they had a cop around. Most likely, but not very interesting. After all, what would Alex Jones say?

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The places to hear from me:
Food – josh lubarr food stuff
Geekiness – geekiness(josh lubarr)
Movies – Old Movies and New with Josh Lubarr
Politics – Progressive Politics (per Josh Lubarr)
Silliness and comedy – Le Repository du Silliness, avec Josh Lubarr
Favorite movies – The Pantheon
Places – Good Things around Boston, and Elsewhere
Me generally – Josh Lubarr’s web site extraordinaire
Also also – Josh’s Part of lubarr.com

George Carlin in the National Portrait Gallery

So, the Public voted to put George Carlin onto the Recognize wall at the National Portrait Gallery (which is part of the Smithsonian). Here's the picture:



When I heard, I was happy to know about it, though I was hoping for a very large, warmly hued oil painting of him in a t-shirt.

What I found out more recently is that this was based on voting between this image of him, and images or Ellen DeGeneres, and Groucho Marx. Now, I have enjoyed many of Carlin's albums for many years -- in fact, the first time I'd heard Class Clown for a long time, I was driving and had to pull over because I was laughing so hard that I couldn't keep my eyes open. Further, if I had to pick which of these images I liked the best, it would certainly be his.



However, it makes me sad that it's not Groucho, even though I don't much like that picture (and the one of Ellen looks like it's from some kind of ad). Here's my question: why do we have to choose one? Can't they all go up there? In fact, I think they should have a comedy wing. They already have Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner, and Harold Morris in Sneaking Through The Sound Barrier at the Air and Space Museum.


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The places to hear from me:
Food – josh lubarr food stuff
Geekiness – geekiness(josh lubarr)
Movies – Old Movies and New with Josh Lubarr
Politics – Progressive Politics (per Josh Lubarr)
Silliness and comedy – Le Repository du Silliness, avec Josh Lubarr
Favorite movies – The Pantheon
Me generally – Josh Lubarr’s web site extraordinaire
Also also – Josh’s Part of lubarr.com