Happy Friday!

I hope that you've had a great week. Charlie Varon and I are doing a Bay Area mini-tour of our political,The Great American Shit Show, which features personal monologues on life in the Trump era. Last night, we had the pleasure of performing it at Tabard Theatre in San Jose, our first sojourn in the South Bay with this particular work and a bit of a homecoming for me. When I was first starting out as a standup when I was 18, I used to play The Last Laugh, the site of which is now Tabard Theatre. It all comes back around! I'll be back there doing Not A Genuine Black Man on September 28.

Saturday, we'll be doing GASS (as we call it) at the Castro Valley Performing Arts Center at 7 and Sunday at Marin Center in San Rafael, which is already sold out.

Here's what else I've been into the last week:

PODCAST

If you're a regular reader, you know I'm a bit of a true crime junkie. I discovered a few weeks ago that NBC's Dateline had recently begun dropping podcasts of previous episodes and I've been binge listening.

The big takeaway from almost all Dateline NBC episodes: Her husband killed her.

NBC News and Dateline have also produced a riveting original podcast called 13 Alibis. It's the story of Richard Rosario who was convicted of a 1996 murder in the Bronx... despite having 13 alibi witnesses (including a cop, a pastor and a federal corrections officer) who put him a thousand miles away in Florida at the time of the killing. Thirteen alibi witnesses that neither the NYPD or the Bronx DA's office bothered to even pick up a phone and call before incarcerating Rosario for twenty years. It's one of those stories that will make you a combination of angry and frightened that our justice system can be so royally unjust.

Some food for thought: If 98% of the people in American prisons are actually guilty of the crimes for which they were convicted, that means that 40,000 inmates (the remaining 2%) are in jail for crimes that they didn't commit. That's a staggering and unacceptable number.

Listen to 13 Alibis here.
Listen to the Dateline NBC podcast here.

BOOKS

Been having a lot of fun this week with The Unofficial MAD MEN Cookbook: Inside the Kitchens, Bars and Restaurants of MAD MEN. Authors Judy Gelman and Peter Zheutlin have written a great book with detailed recipes to all of the drinks and food dishes from the 1960s-set series. If it was mentioned in the series, the recipe is in the book, including everything from how to make the perfect Rob Roy to Sardi's recipe for Steak Tartar as mentioned in Episode 5 of the show's second season. My personal favorite dish is Rib Eye in the Pan with Butter, a minimum ¾-inch rib eye steak seared in canola oil in a cast iron skillet, finished in the oven and covered in a sauce made from butter, cognac and peppercorns. It's amazing. It's also the reason people of that era looked 70 when they were 40 and keeled over from a coronary before 50. But it tastes so goood!
You can get your copy of the book here.
READ IT!

Which brings me to my favorite purchase of the week:
I bought my first cast iron skillet, Emeril Lagasse 62982 Pre-Seasoned Cast Iron Skillet, 12". I love that it's pre-seasoned because I've tried to season other cast iron cookware and just messed it up. It fits two of those Mad Men rib eyes just perfectly too!
Get yours here.
BUY IT!

PERFORMANCES

As I mentioned, Charlie Varon and I will be doing two big performances of The Great American Shit Show this weekend. GASS is a collection of new monologues on life in the era of Trump. It'll make you laugh but, more importantly, it'll make you think. There are lots of shows coming up! Here's where you can catch me in the coming weeks...

Upcoming Shows:

The Great American Shit Show:
AUGUST 17: Castro Valley Performing Arts Center, Castro Valley, CA, 7 PM
AUGUST 18: Marin Center, San Rafael, CA, 7 PM (SOLD OUT)
AUGUST 31: The Marsh, San Francisco, CA, 8 PM
SEPTEMBER 21: Altarena Playhouse, Alameda, CA, 7:30 PM

Not a Genuine Black Man:
AUGUST 22, SEPTEMBER 5 & 26: The Marsh, San Francisco, CA, 7:30 PM
SEPTEMBER 11 & 18: The Stephanie Feury Theatre, Los Angeles, CA, 7:30 PM
SEPTEMBER 20: Altarena Playhouse, Alameda, CA, 7:30 PM
SEPTEMBER 28: Tabard Theatre, San Jose, CA, 8 PM

The Waiting Period:
OCTOBER 5: Douglas Morrison Theater, Hayward, CA, 8 PM
SEPTEMBER 8 & 22: The Marsh, San Francisco, CA, 2 PM (FREE!)

Grandma & Me: An Ode to Single Parents:
(Workshop performances of my newest play)
The Marsh, San Francisco, CA:
OCTOBER 19, NOVEMBER 16 & 23, 5 PM
NOVEMBER 2, 8:30 PM

The Jewelry Box:
NOVEMBER 30: Douglas Morrison Theater, Hayward, CA, 8 PM
DECEMBER 1: Altarena Playhouse, Alameda, CA, 5 PM

Have an awesome weekend!

Copie

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