The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

It's a tad surreal to be involved in comedy during this time in our history. Comedians have, throughout history, consistently tried pushing the envelope as far as appropriateness goes. In yesteryear, if a joke went too far, they'd remove it from their routine, try something else, and the earth would continue to move. That was before the advent of the Internet and social media, however. As times has progressed, so too has the call for increased sensitivities to all demographics. Nowadays, if a joke goes too far, social media sites like Twitter attempt to temporarily stop the world as they try and put the comedian out of business. There's always been a fine line for comedians to walk down, but that line has progressively become longer and narrower, making it ever more difficult to keep one's balance. So where do we draw the line? This isn't just limited to comedians. Is there a similar balancing act politically-correct free speech supporters can walk to help preserv...

After its first week, I gave The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore a B+ grade. While I didn't think the show appeared to be perfect by any stretch of the imagination, I also liked the Daily Show  meets Politically Incorrect vibe I got from it, and thought, with the proper adjustments, the show would indeed provide a great fill-in for The Colbert Report . In the show's succeeding weeks, however, I've been less impressed by it and think that if it doesn't make certain adjustments, it could be in jeopardy of losing many long-time viewers of the show's time slot. One major issue I think the show's had to this point is a lack of direction. It's been unable to decide whether it wants to be a comedy show with serious conversation sprinkled in or a serious show with comedy sprinkled in. It's almost as if the show's writers want to give The Nightly Show a Real Time with Bill Maher feel. The problem with that idea or format is the fact Real Time is an hour lon...

For the third consecutive week, the Denver Broncos lost. Luckily for them, they play in the AFC West and found a way to win the division with an 8-8 record. The Broncos, being division winners, have the 4th seed in the playoffs and will play host to the Pittsburgh Steelers in the opening round this upcoming weekend. It seems that just 2-3 weeks ago, ESPN "analysts" and sportwriters couldn't think of enough good things to say about Tim Tebow. He was magical in the 4th quarter. He was a winner. He motivated his teammates to play harder and never give up. Blah. Blah. Blah. Throughout all of this, I remained firm on my belief that the Denver Broncos recent successes were more due to the defense, running game, special teams and lack of turnovers than Tim Tebow's play. Granted, he had a lot to do with not turning the ball over much, but there's a big difference between leading a team to victory and not losing a game for a team. Tebow was more the latter than the forme...