RichardLucasComedy.com for upcoming dates, good times, etc...
I like the laundromat.
My sweet, sweet, Mamba... don’t ever leave me...
Woodrow Wilson, Woody Allen, I guess everybody named Woody, Ben Roethlisberger, Peter Falk, Ulysses S. Grant, Emily Dickinson and Max Wright. Ideally - Max Wright and Ted Knight in the same room at the same time.
Music is good. My Mom was a music teacher. She forced me into joining her chorus at school in the seventh grade by refusing to buy me a pair of sneakers at Kmart. I loved those sneakers, but in the end they didn’t help me run fast enough to avoid the pummelings. Kmart shoes. That should be a name of a band in my list... I like Kmart Shoes, Radiohead, Muse, Interpol, all the bands that sound like any combination of those four - I’ve given up caring about originality. Keane, The Thrills. And for lifetime achievement: Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed, Neil Young, David Bowie, Chick Koval and the Melody Masters, U2 and Rush.
I like movies that are free or are not very long like - The Room - and now - The Norseman - starring Lee Majors which is showing for free on Flix on my cable. Taxi Driver, Cuckoo's Nest, Key Largo, The Deer Hunter, The Apartment, Arthur, Caddyshack, A Clockwork Orange, Young Frankenstein, Raging Bull, Midnight Express, Dog Day Afternoon, Meet John Doe, Double Indemnity, A Face in the Crowd, Paths of Glory, The Lost Weekend. Edward Scissorhands, Wuthering Heights, The Defiant Ones. Oh, and of course, Duel. My dear friend through these decades - you're always there for me, Duel. Thanks. This year, loved Capote and Good Night and Good Luck. Just watched The Ladykillers with a friend. Check it out for Mr. T. Hanks' performance, pretty amazing. And loved The Little Girl Who Lived Down the Lane - free on Flix - Jodie Foster and Martin Sheen.
24, THE OFFICE, THE SIMPSONS, CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM. I like FBI FILES, COLD CASE FILES and FORENSIC FILES (I like FILES) because I like seeing people get caught, but I am dismayed at the lack of respect for the forensics TV originater: QUINCY. He drank, gambled, chased skirt and still had time to solve crimes by picking at rotting corpses. I like LAW AND ORDER because I like to watch Sam Waterston shake his head. I will miss that when it's gone. I can't look away from THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF ORANGE COUNTY because I thought I used to know what "entitled" meant, but they keep redefining it, and I have to catch up. I also follow ROB & AMBER: AGAINST THE ODDS because, for one thing, I still harbor a crush on Amber (she's from Beaver county, PA and is a Steelers fan), and for another, these two offer us the least reason for two people to be on TV, yet they're never not on TV - see AMAZING RACE ALL STARS. They won a million dollars on SURVIVOR ALL STARS and have decided that having been given such a wonderful gift/opportunity, they would move to Las Vegas so that Rob can take a shot at becoming a professional gambler. That's appreciating that you've truly been blessed alright. I watch a lot of TCM. If Edward G. Robinson is on then I'm watching it, see… THE HISTORY CHANNEL, THE MILITARY CHANNEL (I can't look away from fighter jets), and I like that guy who walks through the sesspools on DISCOVERY and says: That's Dirty. I watch AMERICAN HOT ROD - one for the love of cars, and two to see if Boyd Coddington will ever say a complete sentence in front of the camera. And the news - I have the news on all the time. Sometimes I watch E.T., EXTRA or ACCESS HOLLYWOOD to see how loudly the reporters are talking. Yup, really loud again tonight. I watch every LAKER game. My sweet, sweet KOBE SHOW. Sometimes it's tough to withstand the pain. The NFL - I root for every team that is not THE STEELERS to lose every game, every week. And anyone who knows me knows that for some reason, I love COLUMBO reruns. Have seen every espisode many times. Have bookmarked the fansite. Free ticket to the Improv for anyone who can explain it.
Favorite book of last year: COMPANY MAN by Joseph Finder. You don't just follow an investigation, you follow the man who did it and watch him sweat. Finder always gives his protagonists a great sense of wit as well. Favorite book so far this year: MANHUNT by James L. Swanson. Written as a narrative, it chronicles the 12 day hunt to find John Wilkes Booth and his fellow conspirators after the Lincoln assassination. Beautifully done and fascinating. The detail is incredible and the drama, of course, can not be overdone. Plus, people just spoke better English back then. Beautiful sentence structure, syntax and vocabulary. Language seemed to matter then. Reading the words that they spoke and wrote is just pleasant. Recently read: James Patterson's VIOLETS ARE BLUE and MARY MARY. MARY MARY I really enjoyed. One of the few books I'd ever read in one day because I just couldn't put it down, but VIOLETS ARE BLUE - once you say "vampires," I'm out. Last third saved it, but I just couldn't get a tight grip on the vampire thing. It was, however, one of the goriest books I'd ever read. Greg Iles' TURNING ANGEL - very, very good. If I read one more of his books set in Natchez, I am going to have to take a trip there to see it all for myself. George Carlins' WHEN WILL JESUS BRING THE PORK CHOPS? Carlin hits his stride plenty of times, enough to get you past some of the just plain nonsense. THE GAMES DO COUNT by Brian Kilmeade because sports so influenced my young life also - competition, pain, humility, fear and a little victory thrown in. OR NOT TO BE, A COLLECTION OF SUICIDE NOTES by Marc Etkind. I got this as a birthday gift from a friend. That's knowing your friends, alright. I re-read through this collection every couple of years. It's heartbreaking, and real, and somehow exciting, a secret window. Read Hemingway's THE SUN ALSO RISES. Not an action book. Beautiful read. Watched the movie as well. Some of Errol Flynn's best work as the perpetually partying sad, angry drunk Brit, Mike Campbell. That performance amazed me. Also Finder's PARANOIA and Finder's KILLER INSTINCT. Finder is just fun to read. I can't wait for POWER PLAY. I also I like books about history, presidents, the civil war. I love Charles Dickens and Mark Twain, but I do like to read predictable procedural crime novels when I'm stuck in an airport.
Gene Rayburn.