Book Expo

Managed to catch a little bit of the BEA Expo, the publishing industry's big annual show in New York, this week. At one point waited in the line for an autographed book from comedian Kevin Pollak (which will be published in the fall). I thought it worth noting here that Pollak went above and beyond what I've seen from most authors at this show, having been twice before in prior years.

Although he had high demand for his signature and a long line, Pollak brought a professional photographer with him so anyone who wanted could have their photo taken with him, without holding the line up. He also had questions and patter ready for every attendee. It really was a masterful marketing effort on his part -- above and beyond what I've experienced from other publishers, who can't be bothered to even respond to review copy requests that could promote their products, at a time when publishing is suffering.

Decline of AMC Theaters (and all movie theaters, for that matter)

Had a less than satisfactory experience at the AMC Orpheum movie theater on the Upper East Side last night. Gabi & I ended up there after I played softball in Central Park -- we bought tickets for a 9:50 pm show of Men in Black 3, and went to have dinner nearby before the movie. We had a little bit of leftovers in a bag with us by the time we went to the theater. They had a ticket taker and security person at the door that seemed more appropriate for a club than the movies, and they hassled us about the leftovers and wouldn't let us in.

I went immediately to the theater manager, who was basically no help. Apparently no one is ever supposed to eat dinner in the neighborhood and go to their theater to see a movie afterward. They offered to hold the food for us, but frankly, after being hassled like that, I wouldn't trust them with our food. I demanded and got a refund, and we ended up not seeing the movie and not giving this theater our business.

It is beyond stupid on their part, when home video is quickly surpassing movie theaters in attendance/business, to turn away customers with this lack of discretion. I'll certainly never go to that location again. We're already less often going out to the movies, because the ticket prices and concessions are so greedily inflated, and this pretty much seals it for me -- as far as the whole AMC chain goes, and maybe movie theaters in general. Who needs to be treated like this? Even if we were going to eat our outside food in the theater, which we weren't, why turn away paying ticket buyers when this location was far from busy, or full?

I'll risk sounding like a pompous ass saying this, but having just taken a course on "Leadership and Change" as part of studying for a media management degree, I don't think AMC Theatres is really getting what they're up against in their industry if they think raising prices and lowering customer service standards is really the way they will survive. It's certainly evident that's their current strategy from the experience I just had.

Carl LaBove update/postscript

A brief update to the review of Carl LaBove’s May 8 show is in order, after having caught a second performance of “An Outlaw’s Tale” on May 29. On this night, at the end of his run at the Laughing Devil club in Long Island City, Queens, LaBove had come a long way since earlier in the month – stringing his stories together more seamlessly and with a more logical order, building dramatic tension more effectively and adding other untold stories to the performance. LaBove has developed this show into a full-fledged theater-worthy piece, apart from his stand-up comedy. He plans more performances in the coming months in Long Island and Manhattan. We’ll keep you posted in our shows calendar.

Googa Mooga Extras

Also in the Extra Mooga section of the Googa Mooga festival on May 19, comedians played a part in the foodie-oriented presentations, with Aziz Ansari in particular greatly livening up a panel with chef David Chang, longtime food writer Ruth Reichl and musician/DJ James Murphy.

Ansari, whose new comedy album and special arrives soon and will be reviewed here, made light of eating samples presented to the panelists during their program. He repeatedly reacted to unintentional slips of the tongue by Chang, saying they would start race wars or other explosive activities. Chang, Murphy and Ansari had recently traveled together to Tokyo to do a piece for GQ, so Ansari was able to needle the others at times without genuinely upsetting them.

Food world personality Anthony Bourdain closed the Extra Mooga program of events as sunset neared, attracting the biggest and loudest crowd of any of the programs, garnering the most rock star-like status from the audience’s reactions. Bourdain had to play ringmaster by fielding audience questions for his entire program and the back-and-forth was rowdy, finding him raising his voice a lot to keep control of the proceedings.

This produced some highlights, but also a lot of not-so-thoughtful exchanges, like one question about who Bourdain “would like to deep fry” and another asking him if he had ever “sexted.” In one highlight, Bourdain did answer an eight-year-old girl’s query about how to cook unicorn. He also engaged in rants about favorite targets like the James Beard Foundation, and of course, foodies and hipsters. “Chefs are not rock stars,” Bourdain said, but in this program, it certainly seemed Bourdain was getting treated like one, and maybe even playing to that a bit.

Story Arcs in Miniature

I've been away from this blog for a little while, and couldn't quite stick to the mission I set out at the start of the year of turning this into a meta-comedy-in-the-media-critic sort of enterprise. This entry might seem a little inconsequential, but it's something I noticed.

People do go on about how attention spans are shrinking. I think I saw another piece of evidence of this. On the new HBO show, "Veep," which features Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, and which I like so far, the opening credits set out the whole backstory in what must be an unprecedentedly brief amount of time. It's a quick, animated progression of news headlines about Louis-Dreyfuss' character, a senator who ran for president but didn't make the cut in the primaries and ended up becoming the running mate and then vice president. That whole arc is communicated in what must be less than five seconds, and then "Veep" leaps into its first scene.

The show itself, particularly its dialogue, is pretty rapid fire, to the point where Gabi finds it stressful to watch, but I like the wit and sarcasm, the writing and situations, enough to keep it on my list. I wonder if I may be accelerating my ability to focus, a bit too much though, by becoming a fan of it.

NYT story on monologues

NYT story on monologues

Interesting piece -- will drill down on these performers when I get a chance. The Jester site has written about Ophira Eisenberg and Dave Hill in the past.

I'm glad baseball is back

Chicago vs. Chicago: Round 1 from Nick Offerman