Happy Black Friday!

I hope that you and and yours had a wonderful Thanksgiving and that you aren't spending yourself into bankruptcy today with all of the one day deals.

We had a great holiday at my house yesterday with my kids, sisters, nieces and nephews. There was a power outage on my block from about 9 am Wednesday and was out all day. Quite nerve wracking when the Thanksgiving celebration is scheduled to be at your house. Thank goodness, it ended up alright. Since we weren't sure what time (if at all) PG&E would have its act together, my son Adam and his girlfriend Sasha made the turkey at their house. Their first and it came out better than mine! Daughter Carolyn made stuffing that was out of this world. If fact, the kids did so well with the biggest elements of the meal this year, I told them that now they get to do it EVERY year. Dad's tired. The power finally came back on about 3 am Thanksgiving morning.

I want to give a shout out to SMALL BUSINESS SATURDAY. If you aren't familiar with the concept, the idea is that since the chain retailers get the masses into their stores on Black Friday, the following Saturday is for spending some money at small local businesses. Small businesses are the backbone of our communities and they struggle to compete with the big box stores and the online retailers. Tomorrow, show some love to small business by going to your local indie bookstore or the local jeweler and drop a few bucks. If we don't support small businesses, there won't be any.

Here's what I got to this week...

READING

A few weeks ago I picked up AN AMERICAN MARRIAGE by Tayari Jones. The book has received a lot of buzz and was a recent selection in Oprah's Book Club so, I thought I'd check it out. All I can say is WOW. It's one of those books that stays with you for days after you finish it.

MARRIAGE tells the story of Roy and Celestial, an recently married, Howard University educated, upwardly mobile African American couple living in Atlanta. They drive down to Louisiana to visit Roy's parents, opting to stay at the local motel instead of Roy's childhood home because there's mother-in-law/daughter-in-law tension. This is the mistake that sets the story in motion.

In the middle of the night, police kick in the motel room door and arrest Roy for the rape of another guest. He's innocent, having been in bed with his wife all night. That's irrelevant when he's “positively identified” by the victim, convicted and sentenced to 12 years in a Louisiana prison. The bulk of the story is about whether this marriage can survive Roy's incarceration. It's also about whether Roy can make sense of the fact that, despite having done “all the right things” in life and having been a good citizen, he can still be stripped of his way of life and thrown in with a prison full of men who've done the “wrong things” and actually deserve to be there. It's a really intense book.

READ IT READ IT READ IT

SAW

Caught two pictures this week. My kids and I are HUGE fans of the ROCKY movies and couldn't wait to see CREED II. We were lucky enough to get into the press screening on Monday night, a few days before it opened. It's GREAT!!! If you like movies in this series, you'll love this one.

For all intents and purposes, it's a sequel to 1985's ROCKY IV, where Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) is killed in the ring during an exhibition match by steroid enhanced Russian fighter Ivan Drago (Dolph Lungren). In the new movie, Ivan's son, Viktor, is the fighter and Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) takes him on in order to avenge his father's death. It's just terrific fun. Great fight scenes and the audience cheered like they were ring side at a real title bout. I can't wait to see it again. GO.

I hate it when critics are mean. You can dislike a movie or a play or performance without being cruel. People have put a lot of time and energy into creating what it is you've seen and it's just unfair to tear it down in a hostile way. You don't like it, it's fine to point out the flaws you see and the reasons you don't like it but, there's just no reason be as nasty as some critics are. I mention this because I saw ROBIN HOOD the other night.

As a general rule, I don't read reviews of movies and plays until after I've seen the work. I don't want to be influenced. So, I went into this picture knowing nothing except that it stars Taron Egerton (THE KINGSMAN) and Jamie Foxx. It was what I expected. Swashbuckling. Bows and Arrows. It was fun. Not the best movie I've ever seen but I enjoyed it. Then I read the reviews.

The critics are just nasty. The worst was the Rolling Stone headline, “ROBIN HOOD STEALS FROM THE RICH, ROBS YOU OF TWO HOURS.”

Now if you didn't like the movie, fine. But was this necessary?

Ihe biggest complaint in the reviews I read is that it doesn't measure up to the 1938 version, THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD, which starred Errol Flynn and Olivia De Havilland. Well, what movie can?????? It's Errol Freaking Flynn. Nobody is ever going to out-swashbuckle Errol Flynn.

Anyway. It's not as bad as they're making it out to be. Make up your own mind.
MAYBE

WATCHED

I binged the final season of HOUSE OF CARDS to see how the series handled the firing of Kevin Spacey's iconic Frank Underwood. I'm sure you know by now that they killed the character off. The season revolves around figuring out exactly how he died.

Robin Wright is superb as Claire Underwood, but I was left disappointed and unfulfilled. The series leaves you with one of those unresolved endings. Like THE SOPRANOS black-out. It leaves you to make your own guesses about how things played out. I detest those endings because they set up an expectation in the mind of the audience and leave the viewer unfulfilled. I felt cheated. NO

THEATER

The show I'm doing with Charlie Varon at the Marsh on life in the Trump years, entitled THE GREAT AMERICAN SHIT SHOW, is sold out! If it goes well, we'll do more in the future.

In the meantime, one week from today, I'll open my holiday play THE JEWELRY BOX at the Marsh. JEWELRY is my favorite play to do. It's the true story of my family's first Christmas in California back in 1970 when I was 6. We lived in East Oakland and we were very poor. I wanted to buy my mother a jewelry box from the White Front store on Hegenberger Road that cost $11.97. The play chronicles my odyssey as I tried to raise the money on my own by Christmas Eve. The show has been called “An Instant Classic” and “The Bay Area's Christmas Story.” There isn't a dry eye in the house at the end. Including my own. Come on out and see it!

I'm also producing and performing in LIGHTEN UP FOR NEW YEAR'S EVE at the San Leandro Performing Arts Center December 31 from 7-9:30p. I've put together another hysterican line up of standup comics to laugh you into the new year. Tickets are $65 advance and $75 at the door. Purchase by midnight Sunday and pay only $55 with the password "HOLIDAY."
Go to lightenupforlaughs.brownpapertickets.com or call 1-800-838-3006.

Have a wonderful holiday weekend!

Copie

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