Love My Maw, Love My Paw...

But I just love ol' Arkansas (Mississippi and Louisiana, too)!

4 days
3 great shows in
3 synagogues in
3 states...

Michael "Ziggy" Danziger's Deep South Jewish Comedy Road Trip '08 (or the MZDDSJCRT08, for short) has come and gone, and was a lot of fun. The audiences were great in all three cities, I got to see a lot of friends, ate incredible baked goods at Ambrosia bakery in Hot Springs, was called Kathy Lee Griffith* by a gas station attendant in Arkansas, hurriedly ate Mexican food - which I was certain I would regurgitate during that evening's show - with the temple youth group in Jackson, MS, and recommended - in the course of my shows - that all three congregations consider offering anus perfume as a Purim carnival prize in the future. Needless to say, this was a fantastic experience!

I drove a rental car - provided by the institution that organized this little tour** - rather than my purple car, now well-known from the "Me and My Purple Car" series on this very site. The rental - a Chevy Malibu - had all sorts of features that my distinguished older vehicle does not. The one that got much of my attention was the real-time miles-per-gallon notifier. Watching the effect of every press of the pedals on the gas mileage was absolutely fascinating. I couldn't take my eyes off it. Unfortunately, it was not located on the road, where my eyes should have been! I'm lucky to tell the tale. In this epoch of ultimate concern over fuel economy, it was interesting and every driver would probably benefit from seeing how various driving habits affect what we can get out of each tank. However, if you get caught up in numbers as I do***, you might want to avoid this feature for safety's sake.

I'm tired. More later.

* The attendant, either crazy or bored, kept calling me different names at the end of each sentence. Most were men's names and most were just a first name. Then came Kathy Lee Griffith, which was, perhaps, supposed to be Kathy Lee Gifford or, possibly, Kathy Griffin. Or maybe she meant just what she said.
** The Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life was responsible for organizing the MZDDSJCRT08.
*** For instance, I drove 1320 miles over the course of four days. At that rate, I would drive 120,450 miles in a normal year; 120,780 in this leap year.

And Now In Sports...

Welcome to ZiggyBackRide Sports, where you'll hear the ZBR take on major and exceedingly minor happenings in the world of sports. We turn first to Jewish men's league basketball, where Michael "Ziggy" Danziger is on two teams that are headed for the playoffs. Please note: every team makes the playoffs.

In the 30 and over league, my team is the number one seed in the tournament, looking to finish off the year with a championship. Playoffs began Sunday while my team enjoyed a bye week to prepare for our semi-final matchup next week. In the 18 and over league, my team ruined an unblemished record in our final regular season game by picking up our first win of the season. I've been on some very good teams and some very bad ones. This is a new low. Stay tuned for tourney progress.

And now, in college football: pairings for the BCS bowls were announced last night. Never has the case been more plainly stated for a college football playoff or, at least, a plus-one system. I have never really been in favor of a playoff for two main reasons. 1) It is hard to imagine college football being any more enjoyable than it already is. Sure, it's a wacky system, but it's still fantastic and the wackiness may, in fact, be part of the fun. 2) No system is perfect. Anyone who thinks a playoff won't cause controversy and will automatically crown the best team is kidding himself. (I'll concede here that, given two imperfect systems, it may be preferable for the matter to be settled on the field. Score one for the playoff.)

In college basketball, how about those Texas Longhorns? Having sent rookie of the year frontrunner, Kevin Durant, on to the NBA, the Horns are finding out just how much the rest of the team can do. Steadily climbing the rankings, they are undefeated with two wins over top 5 opponents. Maybe this is the year I get to see Texas and Memphis play for the national title. If only there were a BCS equivalent in basketball instead of that stupid tournament!*

And finally, speaking of tournaments, my comedy career has taken a turn for the odd. Or perhaps, I should say "odds." I will be emceeing Grand Casino - Tunica's Championship 100K Slot Tournament series beginning next Saturday. I have no idea how a slot tournament works or why anyone would want to be in one or how I will refrain from making fun of the event and its participants. I'll certainly keep you posted as this unfolds.

*I love the NCAA Basketball tournament. It is one of the greatest things in the world.

In Good Company

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Jokes has been released. It's out there, Jerry, and it's lllovin' every minute of it! The book, from Penguin Press and edited by Larry Getlen, contains jokes and tips on humor from many, many comedians and I'm proud to be one of them.

Sometime last year, I received a notice about submitting jokes for this project, so I sent in a list. Several months later, it occurred to me that I had not heard anything and I assumed either the book was no longer forthcoming or that my material had not been selected. Days later, I received an email telling me that both of my assumptions were wrong.

That was all the info I got, though, save the release date and some ideas for promoting the book upon its arrival. I didn't know which of my submissions, or how many of them, had been selected. Finally, I know and, oddly, the two that were selected are two of my only jokes that contain profanity. My stuff had to be c*&sored! I'm in there with all these other
comed#%ns* whom I have heard tell some of the raunchiest, most offensive (yet still funny) jokes ever, and I look like the dirty one!

Speaking of the other comedians, though, each submitting comic has a little bio in the back of the book. Mine** is wedged right in between Rodney Dangerfield and Ellen DeGeneres. I can live with that! Of course it just because they are in alphabetical order, but still!

There's a lot of funny stuff in the b$^k and I recommend checking it out.

* Each of my submissions contains a word in which symbols had to be substituted for letters. I've always loved the idea that that makes the word cleaner. Like it's not the meaning and intent that makes a word bad, it's just the letters and their order within the word that people find offensive!

** My bio contains the address of this site, too, so let's get ready to welcome some new folks onto the 'Ride!