Things! Happened! To me! This weekend!
Jun. 26th, 2007 01:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenI completely forgot to write about the trip out to Comedy Central Park on Friday! I had a good time, actually, even though I left in a huff. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wellgull got there early and kindly reserved seats, so we were like three rows from the stage. This tends to make me nervous as I was then dreading that this might get a little too inclusive for my tastes, but it all played out right in the end. One major gripe about the setup? People can smoke at the venue. The comics all seemed to enjoy this provision, but non-smoker me sitting downwind of the guy in our row smoking wasn't pleased.
All in all, Dave Atell wasn't a bad host, and he was actually pretty funny. This was not the impression I got from his stupid TV show. The first two guys to come onstage were also funny. The second guy was one of those angry comics which are hit or miss, but I liked him. The first guy was lanky and geek-cute (though not, judging from his material, actually a geek) and I found him to be the funniest overall.
Of course, he didn't have a lot of competition. There was one female comic who came on third who just retread some of the same ground as the guy before her and then was horribly unfunny to boot. After her, we sat through one-and-a-half comics who thought God-as-woman makes so much sense, 'cause women is demanding, fickle bitches who ruin your lives, dontchaknow? was funny. The fifth guy started to mercilessly make fun of retarded people. By the time one or both of them had made the claim that there are some uppity rich bitches (who wouldn't fuck these guys, I'm guessing) who actively deserve not stalkers but RAPISTS, it was time to leave. I'll suffer through the women-just-like-to-shop shtick; I won't sit and listen to a guy hope that teenage girls get tortured and violated because he doesn't like their attitude.
So, evening ended on a downer, but overall, it was fun to go out and be in the crowd. Anyone thinking of going to concerts/other shows there in the future? My recommendation is to bring earplugs. I had my in-ear earphones on me, and I wouldn't have been half as happy without them. The sound had to be loud enough to carry, but it was too loud for me being up close.
And then I went with to see SiCKO. There's not really much you could say about health care sucking that people don't, secretly, already really know. They might not let themselves believe that they know, but they know. People without health insurance = fucked. People trying to get health insurance = fucked. People with health insurance = fucked. It really drives home how desperate the situation is, though, when Michael Moore follows the inevitable denial of treatment from coming and going. They're gonna fuck you over come hell or high water if they can (and they almost always CAN, surprise surprise). You follow the treatment of patients as subhuman leeches who threaten profit margins from uninsured to insured but denied to insured, approved, then retroactively canceled and you just break down and want to die.
Or kill. I suggest killing. There's a good case to be made, among other vaguely factual claims about the place, that France treats its people so well because the politicians are afraid of the people. Compare that to some of the outrages that Cheney has committed against being held responsible by the people only just this week, and that urge to murder starts rising...
Needless to say, I cried my fucking eyes out. A white woman's black husband is denied a bone marrow transplant from the hospital she works at ("experimental procedure" my ass) and summarily dies. Trinity bawls. One hospital will do nothing for a sick child except back away from her like she's the money-sucking plague; mom is forced to take her to another hospital, and the kid dies. Trinity bawls. A 9/11 rescue worker finds out how inexpensive her medicine is in every other country in the world except the one she lives in and she cries. I lost it.
The best contribution that this film makes to the discussion about health care problems in the USA is that it won't allow the US to deny that health pretty much can only get worse with the current system. This is the worst system of any country that has health care, practically. The debunking of the myths surrounding government-run health care in other countries might gloss over their negative aspects, but because the relative system in America is that much worse, the propaganda against it just isn't going to keep flying for much longer.
I hope.
And Michael Moore was there! At the screening! It was nice that he was more humble with a pliant audience than he is elsewhere that I've seen. I dunno that I completely buy it, but he was sweet and encouraging and rabble-rousing, and hey! Celebrity brushes are what NYC is good for!
wellgull got there early and kindly reserved seats, so we were like three rows from the stage. This tends to make me nervous as I was then dreading that this might get a little too inclusive for my tastes, but it all played out right in the end. One major gripe about the setup? People can smoke at the venue. The comics all seemed to enjoy this provision, but non-smoker me sitting downwind of the guy in our row smoking wasn't pleased.All in all, Dave Atell wasn't a bad host, and he was actually pretty funny. This was not the impression I got from his stupid TV show. The first two guys to come onstage were also funny. The second guy was one of those angry comics which are hit or miss, but I liked him. The first guy was lanky and geek-cute (though not, judging from his material, actually a geek) and I found him to be the funniest overall.
Of course, he didn't have a lot of competition. There was one female comic who came on third who just retread some of the same ground as the guy before her and then was horribly unfunny to boot. After her, we sat through one-and-a-half comics who thought God-as-woman makes so much sense, 'cause women is demanding, fickle bitches who ruin your lives, dontchaknow? was funny. The fifth guy started to mercilessly make fun of retarded people. By the time one or both of them had made the claim that there are some uppity rich bitches (who wouldn't fuck these guys, I'm guessing) who actively deserve not stalkers but RAPISTS, it was time to leave. I'll suffer through the women-just-like-to-shop shtick; I won't sit and listen to a guy hope that teenage girls get tortured and violated because he doesn't like their attitude.
So, evening ended on a downer, but overall, it was fun to go out and be in the crowd. Anyone thinking of going to concerts/other shows there in the future? My recommendation is to bring earplugs. I had my in-ear earphones on me, and I wouldn't have been half as happy without them. The sound had to be loud enough to carry, but it was too loud for me being up close.
And then I went with to see SiCKO. There's not really much you could say about health care sucking that people don't, secretly, already really know. They might not let themselves believe that they know, but they know. People without health insurance = fucked. People trying to get health insurance = fucked. People with health insurance = fucked. It really drives home how desperate the situation is, though, when Michael Moore follows the inevitable denial of treatment from coming and going. They're gonna fuck you over come hell or high water if they can (and they almost always CAN, surprise surprise). You follow the treatment of patients as subhuman leeches who threaten profit margins from uninsured to insured but denied to insured, approved, then retroactively canceled and you just break down and want to die.
Or kill. I suggest killing. There's a good case to be made, among other vaguely factual claims about the place, that France treats its people so well because the politicians are afraid of the people. Compare that to some of the outrages that Cheney has committed against being held responsible by the people only just this week, and that urge to murder starts rising...
Needless to say, I cried my fucking eyes out. A white woman's black husband is denied a bone marrow transplant from the hospital she works at ("experimental procedure" my ass) and summarily dies. Trinity bawls. One hospital will do nothing for a sick child except back away from her like she's the money-sucking plague; mom is forced to take her to another hospital, and the kid dies. Trinity bawls. A 9/11 rescue worker finds out how inexpensive her medicine is in every other country in the world except the one she lives in and she cries. I lost it.
The best contribution that this film makes to the discussion about health care problems in the USA is that it won't allow the US to deny that health pretty much can only get worse with the current system. This is the worst system of any country that has health care, practically. The debunking of the myths surrounding government-run health care in other countries might gloss over their negative aspects, but because the relative system in America is that much worse, the propaganda against it just isn't going to keep flying for much longer.
I hope.
And Michael Moore was there! At the screening! It was nice that he was more humble with a pliant audience than he is elsewhere that I've seen. I dunno that I completely buy it, but he was sweet and encouraging and rabble-rousing, and hey! Celebrity brushes are what NYC is good for!
