Steve Martin Live

Now that the cat is out of the bag, if he does go back to zany we'll all know he relapsed.

 

Yeah, Rock's last special wasn't too funny. I think he was riding the wave of getting slapped by Will Smith and maybe he tried to out Chapelle Dave Chapelle.

 

I think it's really really hard to be mega rich and relatable, when it comes to comedy. It's just a hard needle to thread. Rock even jokes about how rich he is in the special. Chapelle, as you mentioned, seems to be struggling with it too. Rich people problems aren't as funny as poor people problems.

It similar to what happens in rap music, imo. Early 90s guys that hit it big can no longer rap about the things that people related to that made them popular.

 

Nothing could be further from the truth. You're pushing against the small minority and ignoring the larger picture. America has been progressive from the beginning. For example, we have progressed from only white men with land being able to vote to eventually the inclusion of black men in decision making, and finally to all men and women regardless of race, creed, sexual orientation, level of income or anything else. The opposite of progressive is not conservative, but regressive, and it's been regressive forces which have impeded progress.

As I said, a small minority can go overboard by being dictatorial in their own right, but DEI is a good thing. I think the regressive forces ought to be concerned about more pressing matters, such as climate change and gun violence (which regressives have denied or opposed).

 

Some of these guys don't even really do jokes or material anymore. The last few Chapelle specials have just felt like him giving a sermon or something, its almost preachy. It seems like they are in a trap or something of their own making where they think they have to comment on things since they were once tagged as generational voices or something.

 

Yeah. It even happened to Carlin late in his career, imo. And he's one of the best ever. As are Rock and Chapelle.

 

Bargatze is very underrated. Dude is very funny

 

I think he's getting his shine now. He did fly under the radar for a few years.

 

Yeah, when I said I don't generally find Martin Short that funny, Jimminy Glick was actually what I was thinking of. I know many think it's hilarious. Maybe I should give it another shot some time.

 

Some change is for the better.

Change for the sake of change or a bumper sticker like "being progressive" is far from necessarily a good thing.

I think everyone agrees that we need to take care of the Earth and that violence is bad.

What we disagree on as far as climate change is the scope of the problem, the extent of the problem that IS affected and CAN BE affected by human influence, the extent that the problem can be mitigated through US influence, and where it should be on our list of priorities considering the aforementioned factors.

As far as gun violence. I think pretty much everyone thinks violence is bad, the question is what we do about it from a policy perspective. And nobody has a great answer to that. But just because there is no great answer, doesn't mean nobody cares.

All of this aside, this vocal and mobilized minority has a tremendous influence on corporations, regardless of whether you see it or not. I think hard left-leaning people have a pretty big blind spot there because they agree with this vocal and mobilized minority on a lot of issues. So they like to think corporations are just "like that" when many are really "like that" because the alternative leaves them targeted for attacks by this vocal and mobilized minority. For a corporation, the path of least resistance to make money makes sense. If that means bending to the will of an angry mob who will publicly chastize you, publicly demand boycotts, pressure whoever offers you a platform to deny you that platform, and pressure sponsors to stop sponsoring you... then they'll do it. And just because all of this may be legal doesn't mean this hasn't been a way of effectively grabbing many businesses by the balls and thereby shifting the culture by bully tactics towards the left.

 

I have been enjoying Steve Hofstetter as of late. His prepared stuff is very good but his quick witted responses to hecklers is amazing.

 

Corporations don't want hostility in the workplace towards employees. Since conservatives can't help themselves but try to destroy what falls outside their ethos, corporations end up in the position of having to protect the "different."

 

https://www.cato.org/survey-reports...are#liberals-are-divided-political-expression

If you look at American politics as a spectrum from liberal to conservative, then a majority of each group except "strong liberals" believe "the political climate these days prevents me from saying things I believe because others might find them offensive."

This is not really a left versus right thing. It's more of a far left versus everyone else thing where moderate liberals are just siding with the the far left because they're confronted with a binary choice, and they don't like the right.

 

Advertisements depicting men as women has absolutely nothing to do with "hostility in the workplace."

And corporations speaking out on political issues that are completely unrelated to their business has nothing to do with "hostility in the workplace."

This isn't about basic HR, it's about corporations becoming political activists in areas that have absolutely nothing to do with their business.

 

Employees who feel safe in their life are better employees. It's hard to feel safe when a percentage of the population wants to eliminate you from existence or shove you back in the closet and nail shut the door.

 

What do you mean by "eliminate you from existence."

What percentage of the population wants to shove gay people back in the closet?

 

I don't know what the numbers are in particular states, but according to Gallup polling in 2021, almost 1 in 5 Americans said same sex relations should not be legal. One guy DeSantis recently put on the Disney board reportedly called homosexuality "evil." We'd seen a lot of progress, but really strong opposition isn't really fringe either. I'm sure that's especially true in some areas and organizations.