Tag: Vito

Napoleón Dinamita


Vote for Pedro!

I love the movie Napoleon Dynamite with Jon Heder so much that I’ve seen it at least twenty times. I saw it for the first time because my oldest son wanted me to rent it from Blockbuster. I thought I would end up seeing it all by myself as when I’ve rented other movies for him that he really, really wanted to see, like the Lords of Dogtown–and I ended up watching it alone, which I really loved by the way!

Anyway, I knew I had to own Napoleon Dynamite on DVD! When it first came out on DVD, it was only available at a clothing store called Hot Topic. Once I bought it, my twins started watching it repeatedly because they loved the movie, too. Well, I couldn’t walk by the TV without stopping to watch Napoleon and his misadventures. So, I watched it repeatedly along with my sons. Once we watched the movie all the way to the end and I told my sons not to start it over until I had read the credits; I don’t why, but I like to read the credits to see who the key grip is. (This goes back to the days of my youth when my friends Jim, Vito, and I would go to show and sit through all the credits so we could applaud for the key grip.) So, after the credits were completely over–yes, I read them all–there was another scene in which Kip marries LaFawnduh! My sons and I were pleasantly surprised!

Of course, this made me wonder what other surprises were in store for us on the rest of the DVD. Surprise, surprise! Not only does the DVD have subtitles in Spanish and French, but the movie is also dubbed in Spanish! I started watching it with Napoleon speaking Spanish, but my non-Spanish-speaking-Mexican sons wouldn’t watch it in Spanish!

Anyway, sometimes the topic of the movie Napoleon Dynamite comes up in Spanish class because the new student Pedro at Napoleon’s high school is Mexican. I often tell my students that they should watch the movie in Spanish someday. I was planning to watch it all the way through in Spanish one day. Since I’m always open to suggestions in Spanish class, last week, a student recommended that we Napoleon Dynamite in Spanish. I agreed if we didn’t use the subtitles. They resisted, but I insisted. Then, we reached a compromise: We would watch the movie dubbed in Spanish with Spanish subtitles. Since the students were fourth semester Spanish students and most had already seen the movie, I knew they would understand the action and plot development of the movie. I was amazed at how much the students laughed!

Napoleon Dynamite is much funnier in Spanish, especially when Napoleon says, “¡Idiota!” I was wondering how they would translate words like “liger,” which is half-lion, half-tiger. Well, Napoleon says that he’s drawing his favorite animal, “el legre,” which is “medio león, medio tigre.” However, lost in the translation is, “But my lips hurt really bad!”, which is translated as, “Pero mis labios están resecos” and Pedro’s “Maybe I’ll build her a cake or something.” The Spanish used is standard Spanish and doesn’t really capture the slangy colloquialisms of high school teenagers.

Also, the subtitles don’t always match the Spanish dubbing. In the beginning Napoleon says, “¡Rayos!”, but in the subtitles, we read, “¡Cielos!” Obviously, there were two translators at work. Overall, the Spanish captures the feel of the original movie. I would recommend for all Spanish teacher to watch this movie with their high school or college students in Spanish. It was definitely a very entertaining way to reinforce some of the Spanish lessons learned in class.

DDR

The Clout Club


Dr. D. performing standup comedy.

One of the comedy clubs that I remember fondly is The Clout Club. I performed there in late 1986 and early 1987. It was in the back of a bar called the Lounge Axe across the street from the Biograph Theater on north Lincoln Avenue. I went to perform there for the open mic, and I got to know the manager quite well after a few weeks. His name was Jim McManus, but I’m not so sure now. My friend Vito wrote me a joke that I always used there: “I once broke my arm in three places. Halsted, Lincoln, and Fullerton.” Sometimes it would get laughs and sometimes the audience would just stare at me with their mouths hanging wide open, leaving me to wonder why I wanted to be a standup comedian in the first place.

One day, the manager brought in Jim Wiggins who was a TV comedy writer. He had the bright idea to do political humor about the Chicago political scene since the mayoral election was coming up in February of 1987. And thus, The Clout Club was born.

I was lucky enough to be part of it after a few short months of being a comedian. Eventually, I was the emcee for the club. The highlight of my career was when CBS News came to cover one of our shows because it was right before the mayoral primary. I performed my standup act and got big laughs. I was even recorded by the camera for the sake of posterity during my whole performance! Jim Wiggins, Aaron Freeman, Bob Odenkirk, and Bill Gorgo also performed. Many others, Judy Tenuta, Kevin Lampe, Tom Johnson, and Bob Harris also performed back then. The Clout Club soon became the mayoral campaign headquarters for Don Haider on election night of February 1987. I was excited to be part of the entire process. During one performance, Judy Tenuta had Don Haider go up on stage with her. She told him to raise his hands, to put them down, to jump up and down. He did everything she commanded. Finally, she said, “You’re going to make a fine leader of men!”

I remember that Spike Manton was also at the club at the time. He was using his real name Kevin Manton at the time. He told me he was thinking of changing his name to Spike Manton. I told him, “Don’t do it! I don’t think people will like it.” I lost track of him for a while. So, imagine my surprise when I started hearing him introduced on the radio as Spike Manton! I am always amazed at how wrong I can sometimes be about certain things.

Dr. D.’s business card.

Working at The Clout Club was the highlight of my standup comedy career. That eventually led to my only cable TV performance that was forgotten by everyone except me. Sometimes when I recall that epoch of my life, I want to return to the stage. But then I come to my senses.

DDR

Bathroom graffiti


C’est une pipe

I have seen a lot of graffiti in public bathrooms over the years. Normally, I try to avoid public bathrooms altogether, but sometimes, nature calls at the most inopportune moments. I’ve used a lot of public restrooms over the years. Let’s just say that I’m a regular guy. Since I’m a voracious reader, I even read the graffiti while I’m sitting there. I remember a few gems more so than others.

I still remember, “Kilroy was here!” along with the drawing of Kilroy peering over the wall. I haven’t seen Kilroy in bathrooms in years and I really miss him. I always loved, “After every job, there’s always a little paperwork.” Another memorable piece of graffiti was the poem, “Here I sit / Lonely hearted / Tried to shit / But only farted!” Poetry doesn’t come any better than that! I still see this poem on bathroom walls from time to time.

However, as a purist of bathroom graffiti, I hate when someone tries to improve on this classic poem. Anyone remember this poem scrawled over the urinal? “No matter how much you shake and dance / The last few drops are for your pants.” Where are the bathroom poets of yesteryear now?

Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo, Mexico

I read a lot of graffiti in the Lincoln Hall bathroom at University of Illinois at Chicago. Once, above the toilet paper, I read, “Get your UIC diploma here.” When Wayne Gretsky was really popular, beneath “Jesus Saves” someone wrote, “But Gretsky gets the rebound and scores!” Years later, in the same bathroom, I read, “The graffiti isn’t as good as it was 1978. It turned out my friend Vito had written that when he returned to college–again.

Once I had to go really, really bad. So, I was sitting down in a public restroom reading the graffiti on the wall. I heard someone enter the stall next to me. I read, “Tap foot for blowjob.” Only then did I realize that I was tapping my foot! I stopped tapping my foot immediately and hurried out of there. Phew! That was close!

When I was a police officer, I witnessed a wonderful exchange among a series of bathroom graffiti artists. Someone wrote “Bob.” Then, underneath, someone else wrote “Bill.” Then, someone else put a plus sign between Bob and Bill: “Bob + Bill,” implying that they were a romantic item. But another bathroom poet who didn’t understand the nuances of subtlety added the obvious: “Bob + Bill are lovers.” The next addition, however, was a stroke of genius! I assume either Bob or Bill penned the following masterpiece of a conclusion so that the finished text read: “Bob + Bill are lovers of all God’s creatures great and small.”

DDR

Barrel of Laughs


2509 W. Marquette Road
Chicago, Illinois 69629

Last night, I went to a comedy club for the first time in a very long time. I went to Bill Brady’s Barrel of Laughs in Oak Lawn, Illinois. I remember Bill Brady from when he was at the Comedy Womb. I can honestly say that Bill Brady is just as funny today as he was back then. I had meant to write my own standup comedy routine to perform last night, but I never actually finished editing my act, so I went to observe the new talent on Open Mic Night and hopefully learn from them. Well, I’m not sure if I learned any practical lessons since all these comedians reminded me of my past experiences on stage. At least, I observed that performing standup comedy sure has changed for the better! The atmosphere was very congenial and conducive for training new comedians. They had a sign on the stage that prohibited heckling the comedians! Now that’s what I call coddling the comedians.

Since I was a young boy, I have had this secret desire to be a standup comedian and I’m trying to get my nerve up to go on stage again after a brief hiatus of about 21 years. I’m not sure what ever attracted me to standup comedy in the first place since I stuttered and spoke broken English until I was in high school. Whenever I saw comedians on television, I always watched them with affectionate laughter and listened to their every word, memorizing their jokes so I could repeat them later. Since I live in Chicago, which is a breeding ground for all kinds of comedians, I eventually tried my hand at standup comedy with mixed success. My main problem was my stage fright that always hindered me from being comfortable before a large crowd, but not painful enough to prevent me from performing. I worked on improving my comedy act and eventually performed on a local cable TV show no one had ever heard of, including me, until they asked me to be on the show.

Before I ever actually performed standup comedy, my friends Vito, Jim, and I went to some comedy clubs to observe the comedians. We planned everything for our first performances. We tried working together as a team at first, but we were too much of individuals to work together as a team. Eventually, we each wrote our own act that we would perform individually. We helped each other writing jokes for each other and polishing each other’s act. This was all fun and nerve-racking at the same time! Although we never mentioned it to each other, I know we really dreaded our first time on stage. We memorized, rehearsed, and then performed our acts to each other before our debut. We didn’t all perform for the first time on the same night because we performed when we had managed to control our stage fright enough go on stage. I believe Jim, the bravest of the bunch, performed first, followed by me and then Vito. Needless to say, we each made a disastrous debut! But we were extremely proud of ourselves for following through with our plan and going on stage.

Now that I think of it, I’m starting to not only feel that same fear again, but also that same hunger for success again. That’s why I plan to go on stage soon. But first I must fine tune my jokes.

DDR