Hot off the presses! We’ve been informed that Laurence Fishburne is indeed joining the cast of CSI! Our own Point/Counterpoint discussed this a few weeks ago.  Check out our groovy debate here.  I win! I win!

Generally, NBC sucks at pretty much all news-type broadcasting. Specifically, the 2008 Summer Olympic coverage, from what I’ve seen, is atrocious. And the Olympics could be such a great chance for the US to show that we can produce quality content with global appeal.

Maybe it’s the fact that most of the coverage is heavy on either American athletes or athletes with well known international gossip stories. Or maybe its the seemingly endless commercial breaks. No – these things should have been expected, are in fact part of a long history of Olympic coverage aesthetics. I think what I’m most annoyed by are the self-important “Chinese Cultural” pieces that are peppered throughout the event coverage. Perhaps I should have expected this? Well, I didn’t.

Let me paint the scene. Bob Costas, poor man’s Jimmy Stewart, sits behind the announcers booth during a commentary segment. Mary Carillo, poor woman’s Martha Stewart, sits opposite him and guffaws her way through another Chinese slice-of-life piece. Neither look like they have much movement in the small muscles of their faces. And when they’re both smiling through their botox at each other during a discussion of Chinese culture it kind of feels like taking your grandparents backpacking through Asia with you. On this particular night, the theme was Chinese cuisine. Carillo says something about China living up to its reputation of eating anything with four legs besides a table and everything that flies besides a plane. What? Is that a known phrase? If so, Google’s never heard of it.

Cut to Mary taking it to the street. The camera follows her through an outdoor market where she’s challenged to try various Chinese delicacies. “Scorpions?! Are these jumbo scorpions?!” she shouts at a vendor who offers her some. He laughs at her, assumably because she looks and sounds like an idiot. It’s literally 3 minutes of her talking slowly and loudly at various food service workers, picking at their food, and then making awkward faces at them. It’s embarrassing.

Cut back to Bob at NBC Olympics home base. He’s looking nominally amused, I think. And then he looks more than displeased when Mary busts out another scorpion on a stick and thrusts it into his hands. This is hilarious! Scorpions! These people eat scorpions!

Lets get back to sports, NBC. I want to see the American men’s 4×100m freestyle relay team celebrate their pool-side victory over the French. Again. And Again.

UPDATE: The Today Show is also broadcasting live from Beijing during the Olympics. And guess what they had on the show yesterday morning? That’s right, folks. Scorpions. When searching for the video of this to link to, I stumbled across yet ANOTHER segment on eating scorpions. We’ll be lucky if the Chinese invite any of us back into the country once we’re done.

Oh, and for more things that suck, check out our new What Sucks page.

Michael Phelps is HOT!
-Jen

Michael Phelps is an excellent specimen of a man…woo is it getting hot in here?? He’s pretty much hands down the best Olympian in history with, I think 11 gold metals and counting. They say he has an arm span of 6’7”….and don’t I wish he would wrap those Albatross arms around me! And have you seen those shoulders? I mean come on they are round and big and lovely….I wouldn’t mind taking a bite out of them!
The one issue I have with Michael is his teeth. Now, I speak from experience, as a former headgear wearer. After 5 years in braces, I had to re-learn how to swallow (that’s for another discussion), so I know what it’s like. But let’s get with the program Michael and get some orthodontia – I mean you have the money so it’s not a financial aid issue. If anything, take one of those gold metals and melt that sucker down and get yourself a sick ass grill! I’m sure Baltimore would love it!

Michael Phelps looks like a monkey.
-Briana

Listen, I’m all for hot swimmers. I used to hang with them poolside myself back on the swim team. And I’m not going to knock Phelps for his athleticism. He’s amazing to watch in the water. But all that aside, when that dude steps out of the pool and receives a close-up, NBC Olympic coverage style, I’m not exactly liking what I see. Thankfully he swims with a cap on, because otherwise those ears would create some serious drag in the water, possibly causing him his medals.
I don’t want to pick apart his face, I really don’t. The man doesn’t really need a pretty face – he’ll have no trouble with the ladies going forward. His real asset is his killer swimmer bod – which, coincidentally, he seems to want to cover up with that full length swim outfit he seems to be rocking more and more lately. Michael, do us all a favor and bring back the speedo. It distracts us from your monkey face.

Overheard at Rooftop.
Occasionally, we find ourselves saying hilarious things on accident. And we sometimes think they’re so funny that we feel inclined to share them with you.

EmilyH: How do you spell Syphilis?
Annie & Briana (simultaneous): S-Y-P-H-I-L-I-S
Maureen: Can you tell me the origin?
Briana: My friend Mike.

Happy 100th Blog Post, RooftopComedy Bloggers and fans! And Paolo? Gatorade, saltines and lots of cable TV. Get better soon, we’re lost without you!

Paolo: According to your Myspace blog, you spent the summer teaching English to Korean-American 9th graders. How did you get roped into doing that and, is teaching really like the Edward James Olmos epic, Stand and Deliver? Do you think you made a difference at the end of the day, and do you think/know that they’ll make a biography film regarding your experience with these kids, a la Matthew Perry in The Ron Clark Story? Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds?
Nikki: I walked into this whole teaching experience with the dream of being exactly like Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds. Or Hilary Swank in Freedom Writers. But it turns out that I’m more a Debbie Kaye Letourneau from The True Hollywood Story. Kidding…
Although the other day, one of my students told me that I was the “tightest teacher in school.” I was like, how does he know!?

Paolo: How did you get into comedy?
Nikki: I got into comedy during my freshman year of college. My friends kept telling me I should do stand-up, so I signed up for a comedy showcase on campus. I wrote jokes for few months and ended up having a really great set. I think I talked a lot about adult braces. I remember getting off stage and immediately calling my dad to tell him I wanted to quit school to pursue comedy.

P: Who are your comedic influences?
N: I have many. You can probably look at any clip from my first two years in comedy and see them clearly in my delivery … but the comic I’ve looked up to the most would have to be Sarah Silverman. When I was in 8th grade, I came across an article about her in the New York Times. I had no clue who she was, but I was instantly blown away by her jokes, despite the fact that I only understood a handful. I remember sitting at the kitchen table and reading one of her jokes to my dad:
“I was molested by my doctor, which is so bittersweet for a Jewish girl.”
My dad burst out laughing. I didn’t understand why it was so funny, and I remember him awkwardly explaining the racial implications of the joke. It’s been my ultimate goal in comedy is to write jokes that make my dad laugh as hard as I saw him laugh that afternoon in the kitchen.

P: What was the absolute worst show you’ve ever had?
N: It was probably at the Des Moines Funny Bone. I had to do 25 minutes in front of an Army base who chose a comedy club as their first outing in three weeks. They heckled me the entire time. I did my time and immediately escaped to the storage room/closet off of the green room. I sobbed and called my family to tell them I was quitting stand-up to pursue school. Then the manager of the club came and found me huddled on the cement floor next to cans of tomato paste. He told me the head Sergeant of the group wanted to speak to me. The Sarge told me he was sorry for his men’s behavior and that they would be running an extra 4 miles the following morning because of it.

P: If you volunteered to make a mix tape of only five songs to give to a person (let’s say me) for them to get to know you better, what would be on it?
N:
Watching the Wheels by John Lennon
Misunderstood by Wilco
Nineteen by Tegan and Sara
Dark Come Soon by Tegan and Sara
Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman by Britney Spears

P: I think this was a good interview, do you think this was a good interview? What would you have done differently?
N: It was fun. I wish there were more questions. Preferably about Britney Spears. For some reason, I’ve been youtubing her all night. She was really an amazing performer. Watch her clip from the MTV VMAs in 2000 and tell me I’m wrong. I wish I had another question to answer.

P: Did you just write this question yourself?
N: Yes.

P: Lastly, any bonus extra stage final thoughts for the adoring fans of the words on this blog?
N: Ooh! Let’s see…hm. I already said the thing about Brintey Spears… so… um.. nope. I’m good! Thanks!

If you find that you’re missing the funny in all that Olympic pomp and circumstance, you should check out our newest comedy buddy, elbow macaroni. Jon Darcel is a one-man show of awesomeness and he’s just launched a new website! He’s got a great open mic storyline that you should check out.

Starting next Monday, his crazy characters will be making an appearance on ye olde Rooftopblog every week!

So dig into the storylines today and check out his site.  He’s got some sweet stuff for sale and 30% of the proceeds are going to be donated to the YWCA of Seattle. How rad is that?

I’m just sayin’, his Olympic Gold comic from today is pure comedic genius.

It’s called What Sucks. And it totally doesn’t.

So now when you’re chatting with your friend who is complaining about her husband or something, you can log onto RooftopComedy, find a clip under “Being Married Sucks” and send it over to her. And if she still doesn’t stop complaining you can find another clip under “Whiny Annoying Friends Suck” and send that on. And after that? “Having No Friends Sucks” should work for you.

Carry on!

Word from our industry experts just came in. Ok, so maybe the grapes on the comedy vine move a bit slower than your typical Hollywood gossip-fest. This isn’t exactly brand-spankin’-new intel.

Let’s go back to July 16th. Doug Stanhope posts a scathing diatribe on the current state of the Just for Laughs Festival in Montreal to 23/6. Citing JFL’s penchant for underpaying their comedians, controlling content by way of pre-set “pep talks”, and riding on the coat-tails of a long gone reputation for providing up and comers with a launch-pad to fame, Stanhope gets pretty in-their-face about the whole thing. Excerpt Here:

…the people who run the festival still get by on exploiting young talent because of their reputation in bygone days, like Christian Slater nailing hot 20-year olds.

Ouch. Looks like Just for Laughs googled themselves and found the post. When Stanhope headed to Club Soda on July 17^th the manager referenced was pretty amped up about the whole thing. The two bumped into each other in the green room and exchanged some words. Ok, quite a few words. Lots of words, ending in Stanhope being physically escorted OUT of the building. Needless to say “douchebag” is dropped pretty liberally throughout Stanhope’s rebuttal post on his own blog. Again, I’d like to share his peculiar poetry:

The douchebag that runs the Just For Laughs is a condescending shitbaby who bought the nicest swimming pool so that he’ll live in the illusion that people like him every summer. His name is Bruce something.

It’s just far too juicy to pass up posting about, in our humble Rooftop opinion. We kinda wish we had some awesome paparazzi pictures to back it up. Anyone hear of a counter from Bruce? Send it along!

What can we learn from this?

1) Don’t google yourself.

2) If you want to hang with your peeps in the green room, don’t publicly flame the dude who runs the club they’re in.

3) Watch more RooftopComedy.com

Hearts & Happy Friday!

Hank and Mike opens at the Kabuki in SF on July 4th and plays through July 10th.  For more information and tickets, check out the SF Film Society page. Those guys bring the coolest stuff to the city.