‘Newsweek’s’ Snobbish Stand-Up Slam

Stand-up comedy is the least respected of all the performing arts. As if being a stand-up comic weren’t hard enough; the years of being judged by every person who owns a liquor license and a microphone, driving six hours to a non-existent gig, begging moronic agents and managers who are looking for a “new, original and exciting” talent to come out to see your show only to be asked why you aren’t more “Seinfeld-ish.” On top of that it takes years to develop an act and find your voice on stage. There are child actors, child musicians, tiny dancers and even I would guess a few very young working writers, but no child comics. Why? Because stand-up comedy is the only experiential-based art form. Kids can tell “jokes” but they can’t do stand-up. Stand-up comedy, really good stand-up comedy has evolved from joke telling into a personal narrative dialogue with the audience.

Still, every now and then some elitist hack with a degree from the right college and the proper connections gets a job at a failing weekly magazine and decides to take a shot at you and your profession, feeling they are qualified to judge this art form because they know how to laugh and talk. This is rarely if ever done with other art forms. Seriously folks, when is the last time you saw an article about actors who can’t act, dancers who can’t dance, painters who can’t paint or pointless “performance artists.” Yet, about every six months some “critic” declares a number of famous comics “not funny.”    (more…)

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Tags: Barney Frank, Bill Maher, Bob Goldthwaite, Dan Horn, Dane Cook
Posted Nov 20th 2009 at 12:33 pm in Entertainment, Featured Story, Media Criticism | 264486101 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjena/2009/11/20/newsweeks-snobbish-stand-up-slam/%27Newsweek%27s%27+Snobbish+Stand-Up+Slam2009-11-20+20%3A33%3A19Jeffrey+Jena

Burt’s Eye View: Fox and Foes

Whenever I hear people outside the administration prattle on about how evil and biased Fox News is, I know I am listening to a flock of parrots who have never even tuned in. As a conservative myself, I have a number of problems with the network. For one thing, I resent Bill O’Reilly’s ridiculing those who merely ask for documentation that their president was born in the United States, and I also wish he’d stop defending Obama against charges that he’s a Socialist or worse. If it walks, swims and quacks like a duck, Bill, it’s a safe bet that you can pop it in the oven and serve it at Christmastime.

I’d also appreciate it if Sean Hannity would wake up to the fact that a lot of us change the channel the second that Bob Beckel shows up on the Great American Panel.

On the other hand, I wish that merely as an experiment a dozen or so liberals could be forced to watch Glenn Beck for an entire week. I would be dying to know how they would react after watching videos of Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Cass Sunstein, Anita Dunn, Andy Stern and John Holdren spouting off when they think nobody outside the room will hear about their plans to transform America.  They would have made Dr. Frankenstein blanch but put a smile on Karl Marx’s ugly mug. (more…)

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Tags: ACORN, Al Gore, Andy Stern, Anita Dunn, Barney Frank
Posted Nov 19th 2009 at 3:47 pm in Politics | 262694138 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bprelutsky/2009/11/19/burts-eye-view-fox-and-foes/Burt%27s+Eye+View%3A+Fox+and+Foes2009-11-19+23%3A47%3A02Burt+Prelutsky

Obama Nation: A Big Mess They Made

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Tags: "Obama Nation", Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Obama, pelosi
Posted Nov 15th 2009 at 2:14 pm in Art, Politics | 26245040 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/hudlash/2009/11/15/obama-nation-a-big-mess-they-made/Obama+Nation%3A+A+Big+Mess+They+Made2009-11-15+22%3A14%3A27James+Hudnall+and+Batton+Lash

Burt’s Eye View: Questions Even Glenn Beck Hasn’t Asked

I have a few questions on my mind and, judging by the questions asked by the likes of George Stephanopoulos, David Letterman and the mainstream media, if I don’t ask them, there’s a very good chance that nobody else will. 

First off, I’d like to know why the 535 members of Congress have to congregate in Washington, D.C.  As Dick Morris and Eileen McGann made perfectly clear in “Fleeced,” they don’t do very much in the nation’s capitol that they couldn’t do just as well or just as badly if they stayed home in their bathrobes.  Half the time, the sessions are devoted to naming post offices and other equally earth-shattering events.  (more…)

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Tags: arlen spector, Barack Obama, Barbara Boxer, Barney Frank, Charles Schumer
Posted Oct 22nd 2009 at 4:46 pm in Politics | 24845034 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bprelutsky/2009/10/22/burts-eye-view-questions-even-glenn-beck-hasnt-asked/Burt%27s+Eye+View%3A+Questions+Even+Glenn+Beck+Hasn%27t+Asked2009-10-22+23%3A46%3A09Burt+Prelutsky

Burt’s Eye View: From Red, White and Blue to Just Plain Red

Before last year’s election, I heard a lot of people claim they didn’t feel they knew who Obama really was.  For my part, I felt I knew him all too well.  Which was why I didn’t like him and wouldn’t have voted for him even if he’d run unopposed, which, now that I think about McCain’s campaign, was pretty much the way it was.

Boneheads would have you believe my opposition to Obama is based on racism.  I, on the other hand, would insist that when a presidential candidate announces that once his energy plan is in place, our energy costs will soar; that he will bury you if you have the temerity to own a coal company; and that he believes, as he told Joe the Plumber, that it is government’s job to re-distribute wealth, what does race have to do with it?  I hated all that stuff back when it was being promoted by such white con artists as Karl Marx, Josef Stalin and Saul Alinsky.

Furthermore, the way that blacks and other liberals label everyone they’re against as racists, I think conservatives should start suing these punks for slander.  Make them either prove it in court or pay through the nose. (more…)

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Tags: Barney Frank, Castro, chavez, ColorOfChange, Glenn Beck
Posted Sep 3rd 2009 at 10:22 am in Politics | 213190151 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bprelutsky/2009/09/03/from-red-white-and-blue-to-just-plain-red-thurs-9am-to-noon/Burt%27s+Eye+View%3A+From+Red%2C+White+and+Blue+to+Just+Plain+Red2009-09-03+17%3A22%3A23Burt+Prelutsky

Daily Gut: Barney Frank’s Heroic Stand Against Tyranny

So Barney Frank finally found someone he could beat in a debate. The Congressman was speaking at a town committee meeting at Dartmouth, Massachusetts, when a crazy lady approached the microphone with a quivering rant – linking Obama’s health care plan to the Nazis. This was a lay-up for Frank, for the bug-eyed woman was a LaRouche follower, a member of a group of far-left conspiracy chuckleheads – who, like cockroaches, never go away despite the bug spray. These poor folks need medical help, not publicity, but Frank didn’t see it that way. It was his lucky day: he could speak truth to power, even if the power might have been a lonely shut-in.

Now, I am not saying this crackpot was a plant – I’ll leave that to Barbara Boxer. But the provocation was. You could practically see Barney winding up for the pitch, and he even acknowledged the Obama flyer she was carrying. See, he knew where this was going – it was a chance for him to shine with a well-rehearsed line. So while the media paints this as brave Barney standing up to white, racist Obama-haters who’ve hijacked the health care debate – to me he’s Lebron James slam-dunking Steven Hawking. (more…)

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Tags: Barbara Boxer, Barney Frank, health care, LaRouche, LeBron James
Posted Aug 19th 2009 at 1:48 pm in Daily Gut, Politics | 208134232 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ggutfeld/2009/08/19/daily-gut-barney-frank%e2%80%99s-heroic-stand-against-tyranny/Daily+Gut%3A+Barney+Frank%E2%80%99s+Heroic+Stand+Against+Tyranny+2009-08-19+20%3A48%3A15Greg+Gutfeld

Tío Chano vs GI Joe

Last Friday I got back from a hike and saw that my Uncle Luciano (we’ve always called him “Tío Chano”) had taken the car. He left me a note saying that he was going to go see “an Army movie.”

Somehow, I knew he was going to be disappointed.

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Tags: Arkansas, Barack Obama, Barney Frank, Blue Dog Democrats, Charlie Melancon
Posted Aug 14th 2009 at 12:02 pm in Political Humor, Reviews, Uncategorized, Video | 20494642 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jlima/2009/08/14/tio-chano-vs-gi-joe/T%C3%ADo+Chano+vs+GI+Joe2009-08-14+19%3A02%3A06Joe+Lima

The Straight Poop On Radical Islam

I suspect that because George Bush and Condoleezza Rice were so respectful of Muslims, constantly telling us that theirs is a religion of peace, some otherwise sensible Americans actually began to believe it.  Now we have a president who not only kowtows to a Saudi prince, but carries on as if Israeli homes are more threatening than Iranian nukes.

What is wrong with our leaders?  Are they worried that they won’t be invited to those cool Ramadan parties?  The Islamists have been actively at war with us for 30 years and generally at war with western civilization for well over a thousand years, and still we pay lip service to these people in a way we never did with Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan or the Soviet Union.  Is it because the Muslims commit sadism and murder in the name of religion and not country?  If anything, I would think that would make their evil acts all the more contemptible. (more…)

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Tags: 9/11, Africa, al qaeda, Barbara Boxer, Barney Frank
Posted Aug 13th 2009 at 8:52 am in Politics, Religion | 204482108 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bprelutsky/2009/08/13/the-straight-poop-in-radical-islam/The+Straight+Poop+On+Radical+Islam+2009-08-13+15%3A52%3A13Burt+Prelutsky

ObamaCare: Facts are Stubborn Things

The White House Blog on Tuesday, August 4th titles an entry “Facts Are Stubborn Things.” In it is posted a video of Linda Douglass, the Communications Director for the White House’s Health Reform Office, trying to diffuse criticism of the Obama Health Care takeover by showing two clips of President Obama re-stating his oft-heard yet irrelevant contention that the new Health Care “Reform” bill will not take away the health care options of anyone who likes his or her current provider.  Of course, facts are stubborn things, and the facts (read: common sense) stubbornly refuse to support Obama’s talking point.

Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of economics knows that what he is saying is patently false.  The moment the government nationalizes medical insurance, it will undercut all other insurers since the Government doesn’t need to make a profit, whereas insurers do.  Employers, always mindful of their bottom line, will immediately transfer over to the Government plan and all ability of the insured to choose their provider will be lost.  The resultant overload of the government system will force the rationing of health care services.  Soon, the other insurers will be forced out of business and Voilà!, we will have arrived at the goal, previously stated by the President and others like Barney Frank, of a single-payer, Government-run system–just like the failing, overburdened socialized medicine systems of Canada and England. (more…)

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Tags: Barbara Boxer, Barney Frank, Bush administration, crisis, flag@whitehouse.gov
Posted Aug 7th 2009 at 5:06 pm in Featured Story, News, Politics | 202034122 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ebalogh/2009/08/07/facts-are-stubborn-things/ObamaCare%3A+Facts+are+Stubborn+Things2009-08-08+00%3A06%3A24Endre+Balogh

A Health Care Plan on Life Support

By this time, I’m sure we’ve all heard more than we care to about Professor Henry Gates.  Still, I can’t let it go without tossing in my two cents.  Admitting he didn’t know the facts of the case didn’t prevent President Obama, allegedly our first post-racial chief executive, from siding with the black professor and admonishing a white Cambridge policeman.  Nothing too surprising about that, inasmuch as he appears to be far more concerned with the health and comfort of the Islamic terrorists down in Gitmo than he is with America’s elderly citizens. 

I also have a bone to pick with the media’s portrayal of Prof. Gates.  The way they kept describing him, you might have thought the guy had cured cancer or invented the microchip.  His field happens to be black studies.  Even at Harvard, that’s tantamount in academic terms to basket weaving. 

My own field of study is liberals.  As I see it, the major difference between Prof. Gates and me is that he gets paid a lot of money, gets to eat in the faculty dining room and when he acts like an egotistical jerk and swears at a cop doing his duty, he’s the one who not only gets the apology, but gets the President of the United States to defend his boorish behavior.  (more…)

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Tags: Barney Frank, Crowley, Gates, health care, Obama
Posted Jul 31st 2009 at 9:07 am in Politics | 19506693 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bprelutsky/2009/07/31/a-health-care-plan-on-life-support/A+Health+Care+Plan+on+Life+Support2009-07-31+16%3A07%3A53Burt+Prelutsky

Examining Leftist Thinking

The question that’s been preying on my mind is who is best suited to study those strange beings known as liberals.  It strikes me that they’d be fit subjects for psychiatrists, who might be in a position to figure out why they revere the people they do — people such as Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Al Gore and Ted Kennedy — men who haven’t a single notable accomplishment to their name, aside from either winning elections or eliminating them altogether.  Or perhaps it would be more appropriate for biologists to delve into the left-wing organism, and determine how it is possible that creatures without brains could have survived so long in an often hostile environment.

If you don’t believe that liberalism is a serious malady, consider that Paul Krugman of the New York Times, when addressing Sonia Sotomayor’s remark about an Hispanic woman being better qualified than a white man to be a judge, said that she was merely being entertaining.  Even if Mr. Krugman is, as his comment suggests, more easily entertained than a backward three-year-old, I have a feeling that he wasn’t nearly as forgiving when Trent Lott, on the occasion of Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday in 2002, said it was a shame that the old Dixiecrat hadn’t been elected president in 1948. (more…)

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Tags: 57 states, Afghanistan, Al Gore, Barack Hussein Obama, Barney Frank
Posted Jun 11th 2009 at 5:03 am in Politics | 15668213 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bprelutsky/2009/06/11/notes-from-the-liberal-front/Examining+Leftist+Thinking2009-06-11+12%3A03%3A57Burt+Prelutsky

Where Are Liberals Hatched?

I used to be what I thought was a liberal.  If, at the time, anyone had asked me to explain myself, I would have said that I opposed Jim Crow laws, that I believed workers were entitled to make a decent wage and work in a safe environment, and that American citizens shouldn’t be discriminated against because of their race, religion or national origin.

I quit being a liberal because I didn’t believe that members of particular minority groups deserved advantages denied to others; that illegal aliens weren’t entitled to anything but a swift kick to the backside; that being a devout Christian didn’t make you a bad person; and that capitalism was a system that worked, while socialism not only didn’t work, but, wherever it was tried, turned into a tyranny.

I honestly don’t know why there are so many liberals today and I certainly can’t imagine why they have such a lousy agenda.  I have come up with a theory, however.  Here in California, roughly 30 years ago, because of budget cuts, a great many people were released from insane asylums.  They wound up living in the streets, which explains the large number of homeless people, even though Democrats would have you believe that those are normal people who simply lost their jobs along the way. (more…)

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Tags: 9/11, Antonio Villaraigosa, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Barbara Boxer, Barney Frank
Posted May 15th 2009 at 6:39 am in Politics | 1322427 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bprelutsky/2009/05/15/where-are-liberals-hatched/Where+Are+Liberals+Hatched%3F2009-05-15+13%3A39%3A22Burt+Prelutsky

Review: Outrage

Just below the “Thirtysomething” wing, there’s a corner of Hell where never-ending segments of “60 Minutes” air. Sitting through “Outrage” is probably as close as you can get to that experience. Calling it a “documentary” would be dishonest. What “Outrage” really is is 90 tedious minutes devoted to the justification of its own existence — until, of course, in an amusing and unsurprising burst of hypocrisy, it violates even its own carefully laid ground rules to target a Fox News personality.

Written and directed by Kirby Dick, “Outrage” holds itself up as a serious-minded expose on the hypocrisy of supposed gay politicians who, from within the hypocritical, self-loathing confines of a straight closet, make life difficult for the gay community through a self-hatred which manifests as votes against same-sex marriage, civil unions, gay adoption, and the like.

But the film’s not really about that. (more…)

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Tags: "Outrage", Barney Frank, Jim McGreevey, Kirby Dick, out
Posted May 14th 2009 at 5:02 am in Reviews | 134598One Commenthttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2009/05/14/review-outrage/Review%3A+Outrage2009-05-14+12%3A02%3A26John+Nolte

Planet Dumbassnotion

The City of Riverside, California today announced a new plan, in light of the high volume of foreclosed homes, that it was going to start buying foreclosed home, fix them up, and resell them to ‘the needy’.  Isn’t that nice?  The city government in that lovely southern California town is going to do something to ‘make a difference’.  Using tax payers dollars, they are going to enter the house-flipping industry in the midst of possibly the most disastrous housing market on record.

Uh…say what??

Okay.  Here again I find myself having awakened on the parallel-universe planet of Dumbassnotion – a delightful world where reason and logic are turned upside-down and everything you know is completely wrong.  (more…)

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Tags: Barney Frank, California, Chris Dodd, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac
Posted Apr 27th 2009 at 3:41 pm in Politics | 1181943 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ggraham/2009/04/27/planet-dumbassnotion/Planet+Dumbassnotion2009-04-27+22%3A41%3A02Gary+Graham

Recently Discovered: More Nostradamus Premonitions

My research at the La Brea tar pits has uncovered even more Nostradamus Quatrains that just may, (I repeat in the name of truth and science); may pertain to our current national situation. My humble opinion as to what the Quatrain just might be saying is in parentheses next to the listing. You be the judge. (Additional research at Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank and J.G Melon’s in NYC.)

Quatrain 3 Century XMII (The Vice President)

Then came in the wild stories. The tall of the truth will be at full ebb. Laughter from high rooms of the House of White walls. Quash factus, push out all that matters in truth. Rove on in the snicker. Wash away all the real and only then the Byden will spin the tallest tales and really shovel the crap. (more…)

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Tags: Barney Frank, biden, gore, Nostradamus, Obama
Posted Apr 15th 2009 at 5:03 am in Featured Story, Political Humor | 102590One Commenthttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/emannix/2009/04/15/more-nostradamus-for-our-times/Recently+Discovered%3A+More+Nostradamus+Premonitions+2009-04-15+12%3A03%3A03Ernie+Mannix

Episode IV: The Phony AIG Outrage

Nothing tickles the funny bone quite like phony outrage. You know, like Laurie David pulling up alongside an SUV and shouting down the driver for destroying the environment, when Ms. David herself is on the way to catch a private jet to a global warming conference in, I don’t know, somewhere where it’s unseasonably cold.

And we all remember Professor Kerri Dunn, who in response to racist vandals trashing her car, organized and led vigil after vigil denouncing hate speech. In voicing her outrage toward a covert group of white male racists on campus (them again?), she worked the community into quite a frenzy before, oops, it was discovered that she was the culprit. She vandalized her own car, I guess as some sort of publicity stunt. (more…)

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Tags: Barack Obama, Barney Frank, Christoper Dodd, Star Wars
Posted Mar 21st 2009 at 10:40 am in Political Humor | 8471860 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ccannon/2009/03/21/phony-outrage/Episode+IV%3A+The+Phony+AIG+Outrage+2009-03-21+17%3A40%3A31Cam+Cannon

Mr. President, Is My Job Worth Saving?

Just in case you’ve never read my bio, I am a stand-up comedian and have been slinging jokes for over thirty years. I have had my ups and downs, worked the road for years, gigged in dumps and Vegas palaces, done TV and had a few shots at the big time. I have hurt my career by my personal behavior and I blame no one but myself for that.

I reinvented myself as a performer almost as many time as Dylan and I’m still standing. To quote my good friend, radio host Marc Germain, “I’m better than most and not as good as some.” (more…)

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Tags: AFL-CIO, Bahamas, Barack Obama, Barney Frank, Bob Dylan
Posted Mar 6th 2009 at 11:25 am in Entertainment, Political Humor, Politics | 73738103 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjena/2009/03/06/mr-president-is-my-job-worth-saving/Mr.+President%2C+Is+My+Job+Worth+Saving%3F2009-03-06+19%3A25%3A48Jeffrey+Jena