As mentioned in the previous post, the New York Film Critics Circle had their awards ceremony this week, and as a three-time former chairman of the circle, our favorite old curmudgeonarion thesaurasaurus Armond White was in the audience. At one point, Michael Moore took the stage to present an award for How to Survive a Plague, at which point White and a friend began to heckle him, shouting “F*ck you!”, which is much less Armond White-like than when he shouted “Ethel Waters!” at Viola Davis last year.

Moore was on hand to present the award for Best First Film to David France, whose feature “How to Survive a Plague” is a salute to ACT UP, the radical protest group whose most notorious action was to send thousands of protesters to St. Patrick’s Cathedral during the Christmas season in 1989. Dozens stormed into the December Mass to disrupt the prayers and desecrate the Host, which Catholics believe is the Body of Christ. A stunned John Cardinal O’Connor looked on in horror. The publicity stunt was denounced by David Dinkins, Mario Cuomo, Ed Koch and the Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Rights.

Moore, saluting the ACT UP film, said the American public was indifferent to the AIDS crisis as it happened and indeed breathed “almost a collective sigh of relief that it [AIDS] was primarily victimizing gay men.” Moore went on to say he liked the film’s reminder that “the Cardinal couldn’t get through Mass at St. Patrick’s.”

Moore stated, “I personally like that one. I say that as a former seminarian.” But White and a friend shouted, “[Bleep] you!” “You liar!” “Shut up!” and “Drop dead!”

Moore responded, “I’ve pissed off the Catholics,” and began a blessing in Latin. He then went on to say that “those who would deify Reagan and Pope John Paul II are responsible for the deaths of thousands of people . . . because of their bigotry.”

You see, in the world of Armond White, Catholicism is almost as sacrosanct as those benefirous priapizians of modern masculinity, Neveldine and Taylor, whose effervesphorescent tours de force in multi-dimensionarious explosiatalitarianism out-patinas the lambency of even Paul WS Anderson and Jack and Jill. As such, a vulgar interloafer like Michael Moore must be punished with the most withering pejoratives in the junior high milieu. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a fun little video that’s been making the rounds among my stand-up comedian friends: comedian Jake Weisman, performing at the Hell Yes Fest in New Orleans over the weekend, finds himself dealing with your typical drunk jackass who thinks he’s helping entertain the audience by interjecting dumb comments in the middle of Weisman’s set ups (you’d be amazed at how common it is for drunk people to talk to the the guy on stage as if it’s a private conversation between just them two – I mentioned this phenomenon in my Dave Chappelle story a while back). It starts about 4:40 into the video, and rather than trying to power through his bits over the top of Drunk Jackass, Weisman wisely sits down and prods the guy who wants all the attention onto the stage.

Shockingly, the drunk guy is obnoxious and not funny, and is very bad at taking direction. Weisman starts literally, physically wrestling with Drunk J, and at that point, even the heckler-humiliation bit is starting to go south, when all of a sudden, at 6:55 of the video, a bag of cocaine falls out of DJ’s pocket. Weisman points out that this is the first time he’s seen cocaine (and you call yourself a comedian?!) and tries to convince DJ that’s he’s going to go to jail. The guy eventually leaves, and it’d be nice to think that he’d learned a lesson, but I doubt it. If it was me, I would’ve done what my grandpappy did to teach me a lesson when I got into his coke stash: he made me snort the whole bag.

In any case, well done, Jake Weisman, you win the award for heckler-shaming. Though I have to admit, that little shrug the kid gives when Weisman hands him his cocaine is pretty classic. “Eh, he found my cocaine, whaddyagonna do?”

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