Sorry Details of Mundacity OR AT&T UVerse Technology Ain’t That Great

I am typing up notes taken during Robin Williams’ performance at the university arena in Orlando Friday evening which I saw with my daughter.  I can’t post these musing until I dunno sometime today after the AT&T guy is here to replace the cable box for the third time in three months.   He or she will be here at 8 a.m. and I will try to be polite because the third time situation is not his or her problem. Every time it rains with lightning my box implodes and it rains a lot in Florida.  This was a week of midterms and I had posted one set late in the morning.  It rained this afternoon because it does that in Florida in autumn.  Second set of midterms won’t be posted until late in the morning hopefully.

Nope it will probably be this afternoon.  And ONLY because I got forceful on the phone with customer service.  Also the two tech support reps and the two cable guys sent to the house were professional, polite, and appreciated the misery losing the Internet can cause me as in I CAN”T WORK. So kudos to AT&T for your people. These UVerse boxes I do not love so much.

After the Williams’ performance my daughter was pissed and surly that I made her go to Denny’s for the free wi-fi at 11 p.m. so I could get on the course website before midnight and deal with the situation kinda sorta or just explain it.  Lesson learned from making friends with a labor organizer is that if you need free wi-fi after normal business hours find a Denny’s.  The chicken wings were cheap and good as well.  Got BBQ sauce on the keyboard and the friendly waitress plugged the laptop cord in behind the cash register.  That is service.

Robin Williams is Still Funny If You Can Get Past Bitter Divorced Guy Humor

Anyway Williams’ was originally scheduled to be in Orlando in April but had a heart attack two days before the performance while in Miami. When I looked at the schedule then he seemed to be doing something like 40 dates in two months with special dinners at $300 a pop before the performances if one wanted to meet him in person.  He has added MORE since his tour restarted after recovering from the heart attack during which one of his valves was replaced with that of a cow.  His divorce had just been made public in April but not the financial details.  I am guessing that was one expensive divorce without a pre-nup.   Otherwise the many dates and weird dinner packages strangers may purchase for dinner with Williams during the tour where he is likely to hear how his performance as Mork made adolescent angst bearable but delayed the weekly teen bible study by thirty minutes which really pissed off our youth minister David who was bearded and HAWT.  Well I would have said something like that.

Then I would have asked Williams to sign the reality . . . what a concept album that hangs in my study.  The title of that album handily sums up the whole of Sophistic philosophy which is where my academic interests lie.  The album is on the wall in one of those frames from Restoration Hardware and was a going away gift when I left a university where I taught a lot of rhetoric and comedy classes for composition students.  They got the connection to Sophistic philosophy.

The beginning of the show established Williams’ “bitter divorced man” persona rather persuasively.

1. Songs Williams (I guess) chose to have played before he walked on stage: Highway to Hell, Stop Dragging My Heart Around, and I Want to Be Sedated.
2. This joke: Alimony = All the money.
3. This joke about marriage: There is a penalty for early withdrawal and depositing into another account.

So yeah he was kinda bitter but it did not overpower the performance.

Weird thing I remember reading that makes me think Williams had a lot of money to lose in a state with 50/50 split the assets divorce laws like California.  Apparently Disney grossly underpaid him for his voice work as the genie in the first Aladdin movie.  In order to appease him Disney sent over an original Picasso or Monet or something like that.  My mind is full of useless data like that.  Helps when I watch Jeopardy sometimes but I doubt they have had a Robin Williams category.

Williams Shows His On-The-Road Standup Roots

My daughter was impressed that Williams made the effort to ingratiate himself with the crowd by making local references as in the nickname for the university based on its abbreviation is “Under Construction Forever”. Williams also noted that the well-dressed couple who rudely arrived fifteen minutes late for front row center seats must have just traveled from Windermere (that is where rich golfers and movie stars who like to golf buy houses – perhaps Williams has one himself or used to).

Williams worried me when he brought up Florida Governor Crist and his perpetual tan.  I saw Kathy Griffin perform last month who just came right out and said she admired Florida for being progressive enough to have a gay governor.  Owning one’s own tanning bed does not make one gay.  Really.  And I don’t know and don’t care but did find Crist’s impulsive decision to marry late in life for the first time the week McCain was choosing a running mate rather painfully embarrassing for his lovely wife.  She is a wealthy woman who frequently donates to Republican campaigns in Florida. Inexplicably she owns a costume store where she must sell a lot of beards – this must be her busy month. And then McCain dumped Crist for Sarah Palin.  Ungrateful jerk.  The lives that Palin has inadvertently destroyed just by existing ;0)  Umm now you know at least one reason why there was ONE Republican governor who appeared with Obama at a public event promoting the stimulus package . . . I’m just saying.

 Williams also took a swipe at Disney indicating the new Disney park in China might bring in some of the kajillion dollars the United States owes China.  He said the new ride at that park would be Investment Pirates of the Caribbean featuring Lou Perlman and Bernie Madoff.   If you have seen the weird prominence Johnny Depp now has in the Disneyworld  Pirates of the Caribbean then that was a funny reference.  Williams then referred to the most masochistic or sadistic ride Disney ever devised when he quipped the new annoying ride about the United States would be “It’s a Third World After All.”

Williams’ Social Commentary

1.      If global warming is not real then the world is bipolar.  Also it has recently snowed in Vegas meaning hell has frozen over.  (The Vegas reference must have originally been intended for the April show.  When I was in Vegas in July it was 114 degrees.)

2.      The earthquakes in California mean that state is God’s etch-a-sketch. 

3.      Congressmen should be required to wear jackets indicating sponsorship like NASCAR drivers.

4.      Obama is an old Kenyan word for Kennedy. 

5.      Kicking Michael Phelps off the front of the frosted flakes cereal box for smoking weed was illogical because any adult eating frosted flakes after the age of 10 and  after 10 a.m. is likely herbally inspired.

The Longer Sets

The whole performance lasted two hours so Williams really gives the audience their money’s worth.  There was no opening act and Williams just walked onto the stage without much fuss.  Take that Dane Cook with your three lame opening acts, weird canned “backstage” footage, and grandiose entrance through a path made by tuxedo clad body guards with linked arms.  Like I said a few months ago Dane Cook you are Olive Garden.  Williams is the real deal and puts just himself out there for good or bad.

One of the sets was about Williams’ stints in rehab in the wine country so he kept his options open for alcoholism indicating he has pretty much alienated many of his family and friends.  Just not a funny topic for me now.  However if one is into self-deprecation based on horrible acts alcoholics will commit when as Williams noted their consciences exit the building then he nailed it.  Alcoholics have ropey penises.  Who knew?

Another set was about how porn movies might be if real actors and celebrities such as James Brown and Christopher Walken starred in them.  Now it is hardly Williams’ fault that Frank Caliendo has appropriated his voice for a set on what if Robin Williams remade the Wizard of Oz doing all the characters.  I’m guessing Williams rather hates Caliendo for that.  This set just seemed like a porn version of the Oz sketch and Williams has mastered the art of juggling a water bottle to approximate ejaculation.  James Brown is rather jumpy.  Use your imagination.

Now The Kinda Mean Stuff

Comedians have several cultural commonplaces which they refer to again and again including airline food, how men feel about women while shopping with them and when several women go to the bathroom together, blow jobs, porn, and alcohol.  I tell my students that relying on jokes about such subjects generally indicates the comedian has done little if any audience analysis and is just throwing meat to the dogs.  Williams used all those commonplaces except the ones about women and although clearly bitter and divorced he spared everyone references to the women in his life.

Williams closed the show with an imitation of his recently deceased friend Walter Cronkite telling a blue joke which Williams swears are the kinds of jokes Cronkite liked.  Sounds odd but it was a sweet memorial.

Ummm . . . I did enjoy the performance.  I just don’t think it ranked up there with Williams’ best and I hope he goes home and rests soon.  I did not know until afterwards that like me my daughter worried he would have health issues during the entire performance.  Contracts do need to be honored and Williams demonstrated he is a professional.

It just seems that Williams’ heart needs time to heal in more ways than one.  I sincerely hope that happens.

My older daughter read this before posting and has approved all of its content except the swipe at Frank Caliendo which she did not appreciate and says that comparison did not occur to her at all during the show.