Best Stand-up Comedian in the Business

I've seen a lot of stand-up comedians in my life. Jerry Seinfeld, John Cleese, Dana Carvey, Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Norm MacDonald, Adam Sandler, Lewis Black and Jay Mohr are the best that come to mind. None of them touch seeing Robin Williams live, however. I saw him for what must be about the sixth or seventh time tonight at Bimbo's 365 and he was fantastic as usual. To see Williams at Bimbos is a real treat because it's a small venue (~300 people) and he is much less filtered than he is in his HBO special that aired a few years ago (links to selected clips below). Before I forget, if you live in the SF Bay area and you want tickets to his shows get on this mailing list. You get a days' warning before tickets go on sale, and you better be ready to snap them up in the first 60 seconds or they're all gone (and you can only get two tickets). That being said it's definitely worth it.

Tonight Williams did a few bits I've seen before (he does a great one on intelligent design that is funny every time), but he did a few new ones as well. Of course a good chunk of his material is just him making it up as he goes along which is part of the fun. This one woman in the front row kept getting up to go to the bathroom and he made fun of her every time she got up and every time she got back.

He did a bit on the first answering machine that was pretty funny. In it he pretended to be Alexander Graham Bell playing his outgoing message for a caller.

"Hello, you've reached Alexander Graham Bell. I'm not sure how you're calling me seeing as I have the only phone in existence. Please leave your name and number and when I invent a second phone I'll call you back."

The second new bit that he did relied one of his many fantastic character voices. This is possible his best of them all -- his French "I don't give a sh*t/life sucks" voice (where he's constantly pretending to smoke a cigarette. Why? Because he's French). In it he created a scene where a French clown went to a small child's birthday party. The entire bit focused on the clown telling the child how depressing life is and how the birthday merely meant that the child was a year closer to death. I can't remember all the details, but it was really funny.

The last one-liner that he had that was pretty funny was (again) using one of his voices. He was talking about Bono being at a concert recently where he was having everyone clap their hands together. Then he (Bono) says, "Every time you clap your hands a child in Africa dies." Williams then says a Scotsman in the back then shouts out (and this works best if you know what his Scottish accent sounds like), "Then stop clapping your f@cking hands!" If you don't know what his Scottish accent sounds like or you've never seen his bit on golf you should check this out.

French President Tries To Justify France's Seat on UN Security Council

Exactly three months ago Nicolas Sarkozy had his way with Socialist opponent Segolene Royal to become France's next President. Sarkozy, well aware of France's reputation in the World, promised to bring pride back to a nation that used to matter. "I want to give French people back the pride of being French -- to finish with repentance, which is a form of self-hate." After the World stopped laughing they took a wait-and-see attitude towards the French leader.

A quick survey of the internet shows just how big a task Sarkozy has in front of him:

Q: How are French babies born?
A: With their hands up (surrendering).

"We can stand here like the French, or we can do something about it."
-Marge Simpson

"I would rather have a German division in front of me than a French one behind me."
-General George S. Patton

Yesterday, while vacationing with his family in Concord, New Hampshire, Sarkozy showed the World that France finally has a leader with some balls. Apparently angry at some photographers who hadn't received a translation of his earlier request to leave him and his family alone Sarkozy completely lost it. Clad only in his swimsuit Sarkozy pulled his boat alongside photographers' boat and jumped aboard their vessel! He immediately began screaming at them in French.

Freelance writer Vince DeWitt who was aboard the boat described the situation, “The president was very agitated, speaking French at a loud volume very rapidly."

Let this be a lesson to DeWitt and the rest of the World: Sarkozy is putting you on notice. He isn't your typical Frenchman. You f*ck with him, you better be prepared to pay the consequences.

When in Toulouse Do as the Toulousians Do...

My high number of blog postings today can be attributed to lots of time in air ports and not wanting to sleep. I got into Toulouse late tonight and saw ads for EADS (the parent company of Airbus) all over the airport. I'd been thinking about Airbus a lot lately both because my Econ Prof (smart guy, check out his website) loves to make fun of them (my favorite comment being when he said that France wanted to be a "real" country so they started to subsidize EADS to help them compete with Boeing) and because they've been in the news a lot. There' s actually a big article in The Wall Street Journal on a spat they're having w/ GE and about supplying engines for the A350 here (if you have a subscription or steal it from someone).

The article reminded me just how badly Boeing's 787 is beating the pants off of the A350. To date Boeing has 677 firm orders to the A350's 154! I believe the technical term for that is an ass whuppin' (but I'll have to double check). I think it's interesting because this is one of the few industries where you really get to watch companies make strategic decisions and see how they play out over time. I remember when both companies unveiled their respective designs there was a lot of back-and-forth about which company had the right approach (since they chose such divergent paths). The A350 is a gargantuan plane aimed at highly traveled long-haul routes whereas the 787 is an extremely fuel-efficient plane that isn't as large, but can be configured for different route lengths depending on what airlines want. Today I don't think there's much of a debate. Airbus has been saddled by delays and major order cancellations (even Fred Smith canceled FedEx's order and he LOVES buying airplanes). Incidentally, how many more times will Europe need to go through this before they stop throwing subsidies at commercial airplanes? The A350 is an engineering marvel (just like the Concorde was), but if no one buys it what good is it?

It's also interesting to see how this drags other companies into the mix. In the WSJ article Airbus is complaining about Boeing's apparent unwillingness to design an engine for them (I'm sure the lack of orders and massive production delays has nothing to do with it). My favorite quote:

"The problem we have with GE is they go to [Boeing in] Seattle and say, 'What kind of engine should we design for your airframe?' " said John Leahy, Airbus's chief operating officer for customers and its top salesman. "Then they come to [Airbus in] Toulouse and say, 'Here is the kind of airframe you need to build to fit our engine.' "

Airbus/EADS reminds me a lot of the Uncle Leo character on Seinfeld (hey, I haven't worked a Seinfeld thread into a post in a while). Uncle Leo thinks everyone is anti-semitic (I have some relatives like that actually). There's a great episode where he breaks up with his JEWISH girlfriend for laughing at a Jewish jokes. Of course he accuses her of being anti-semitic too. Throughout this whole A350 debacle Airbus blames everyone else but themselves. I'm sure if they have any problems they just drag the WTO or the EU in and accuse Boeing of being unfair.