This Christmas, Don’t Invite Me To Your Gift Exchange
Christmas gift exchanges can be fun, but they need to come with rules. There can't be any attendees who aren't in the proper holiday spirit.Christmas gift exchanges can be fun, but they need to come with rules. There can't be any attendees who aren't in the proper holiday spirit.Something Kids Want, Need, Wear, And Read: Your Go-To Guide For Abiding By The Four-Gift Rule
The four-gift rule ensures that the kids in your life receive a wide variety of presents that won’t turn into closet clutter by January.Bill Maher: I've run out of Trump jokes!
How does a wannabe blockbuster deal with bad buzz?
You start by giving away the movie for free or at least the first eight minutes.
'I did all the Trump stuff before anybody. I called him a con man before anyone, I did "he’s a mafia boss," I was the one who said he wasn’t going to concede the election, I’ve done it.'
“Kraven the Hunter,” which gives us the origin of the titular pelt-wearing Spider-Man nemesis, got bumped around the release schedule thanks to the dueling Hollywood strikes.
Oh, and the film’s trailer didn’t exactly light a fire under most potential moviegoers.
Now, Sony is offering a free look at the film’s opening scene before its Dec. 20 release date. See? It’s not so bad, right?
The film’s star is also doing his best to flush out elusive fans.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson, rumored to be in the running for the next 007, told ScreenRant.com readers to ignore the rumors and take the ride.
“So really come see this movie, man. Come see this movie. I promise you it won't disappoint. It's got all the beats that you want and more. I think it could be an audience’s sort of villain favorite, definitely go toe-to-toe with some other people down the line, man."
Sounds sincere, no? At least it’s better than telling audiences they should “never know peace.”
Gender-gypped
Woke is getting pummeled of late following President-elect Donald Trump’s victory. This development won’t help.
Some minor league awards shows have gone gender neutral with their categories, a sign of the oh, so progressive times. That means the best performer wins in each category, not the best male actor or actress.
Can you sense where this is going?
The recent Gotham Awards honored three men with acting trophies, leaving the female performers behind. Most mainstream media outlets ignored that inconvenient truth, but World of Reel (a more honest, rebellious site) mentioned it.
The folks behind the annual Oscar telecast have flirted with the gender-neutral concept without committing to the practice. Here’s betting the Gotham scenario likely put a dent in those plans.
Greer's 'Family' fumble
Regrets, actress Judy Greer has a few.
One, really. A really, really big one.
“The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” star revealed that she passed up an audition to play Claire Dunphy on ABC’s “Modern Family.” She feared the matriarch role would typecast her.
“In a movie, people kind of see it and then they forget. In a TV show, it’s just like, you’re a mom. That’s it.”
The show went on to earn two Emmys for the eventual Claire Dunphy, Julie Bowen. “Modern Family” ran for 11 celebrated seasons and became one of TV’s funniest sitcoms.
There’s no guarantee Greer would have landed the part, of course. She had a good shot, though. She’s a deeply underrated performer and excels in comic roles. Consider her recurring part on “Arrested Development” as exhibit A.
Full of quit
The host of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” hinted he might quit the long-running show rather than deal with four more years of President Trump. Here’s what he confessed to his podcast show’s guest Jane Fonda.
“I’m s****ing my pants. I mean, I may quit because I don’t want to do another ... I did all the Trump stuff before anybody. I called him a con man before anyone, I did ‘he’s a mafia boss,’ I was the one who said he wasn’t going to concede the election, I’ve done it.”
There’s something healthy about Maher’s approach. Political jokes can get stale over time. Remember all the “President Clinton is randy” gags following Monica Gate? What about the dumb Dubya bits that flowed during President George W. Bush’s two terms in office?
Maher recognizes it’s harder to find something new to say and share about Trump this time around. Or maybe he’s just as much a sore loser as Rob Reiner, who confessed he checked into a “facility” following Election Day.
Maher would be better served by digging beneath Trump’s blustery surface and mocking the mogul’s oh, so mockable critics. And he’s capable of doing just that.
The comic is one of the few honest brokers on late-night TV. He’s routinely lashed out at woke overreach, mocked the left’s embrace of policies that frighten most voters, and stood tall for free speech when others took a knee.
You can’t go, Bill! Late-night TV needs someone who isn’t on the DNC payroll.
American workers need dignified uniforms
When you look at old photos, you notice a lot of different things. Different cars, different clothes, different kinds of houses. More suits on men, more dresses on women.
One affirms dignity. The other induces a sense of childlike silliness.
No iPads, no tattoos, blocky TVs that looked like furniture, and big long station wagons.
You also notice that the workers wore clothes that were a lot nicer. All across the board, the average work uniforms of the past were nicer than they are today. A grocery clerk from the old days dressed with greater dignity than half the people you might find at a wedding in 2024. And the average worker in 2024 wears a uniform that can’t possibly do anything other than depress him. It’s sad but true.
The store uniforms we see these days tend to be graphic T-shirts with stupid little designs on the back. Of course, I would love to see nicer uniforms because I want everyone to dress better, and I would much rather look at decent clothes than ugly clothes; the beautification of our society starts with ourselves, and we can all make a difference. But the argument for nicer store uniforms isn’t only about what’s pleasant for others to see. It’s about the dignity of the worker and the quality of his life.
If I worked at a store and my uniform was a bright blue graphic T-shirt with a cartoonish design on the back, I really wouldn’t feel very good about what I was wearing. If I had to wear this uniform every day, I would feel silly and stupid. Infantilized.
It would be hard to take myself and my job seriously. If I was stuck working some stupid job I hated, wearing some dumb silly shirt every day would only make the whole situation worse.
I’m sure an argument for these graphic T-shirt uniforms is comfort. I’m sure the workers say they are comfortable, and the owners want their workers to be comfortable. Our society worships comfort, after all. It’s one of our great idols in 2024. The road to slob-world is paved with comfort. And while, of course, comfort matters, it’s not the only thing that matters.
You can sacrifice dignity for the sake of comfort. We do it every day in our culture. Furthermore, it must be said that a graphic T-shirt isn’t necessarily more comfortable than a properly fitting 100% cotton button-up.
Look at old photos of the past to see what properly fitting uniforms should look like. Full-cut pants with room to move easily. Loosely fitting button-ups with ample fabric around the midsection, chest, and biceps. The sleeves were easily rolled up with no constriction or an overly tight fit. Simple, dark shoes. The modern world of the 20th century was built in this simple uniform.
These clothes are no less comfortable than a pair of jeans and a graphic T-shirt. In fact, they are, believe it or not, more comfortable. People just don’t realize it. And the difference between this simple, basic uniform and the infantilizing graphic T-shirt is night and day. One affirms dignity. The other induces a sense of childlike silliness.
Workers deserve dignity. I know when you read that, you might expect to read next about insurance, time off, and workplace safety and not clothing and style.
But clothes matter, and they matter to everyone. A more dignified workforce means a more dignified society, and we all deserve a more dignified society. Nicer uniforms — uniforms that affirm the dignity of man — don’t need to be expensive. They don’t need to be finely made or particularly fancy. They can be simple and utilitarian. They just need to be dignified and serious. They need to command some kind of authority and purpose.
This was essentially how all uniforms looked in the past. The goofball uniform wasn’t a thing. There was an unspoken assumption that a uniform should convey seriousness. That assumption followed another assumption that adults should convey seriousness as well. This was the basic order of society.
Times have changed. The uniforms aren’t serious today because the society isn’t serious today. Men today are more likely to wear clothes that make a joke than clothes that make a statement of seriousness. Strength and beauty are not considerations for most people today when putting together an outfit. They should be; they were for most of history, but not today.
All of this has a terribly negative impact on the general psychological state of people in the America of 2024, but it compounds for the worker whose uniform feels more like an insult to injury than anything else.
Why require workers to wear something that is stupid and undignified? If workers are required to wear a uniform, let it be a uniform of dignity. It’s better for the worker, better for the customer, and better for the general aesthetic health of our society.
Documentary 'The Philadelphia Eleven': Mythmaking for a dying Christian denomination
Of all the divisions troubling Protestantism today, perhaps none is as hotly debated as women’s ordination.
All seven mainline Protestant denominations have adopted the practice, while evangelical and fundamentalist denominations have defiantly refused to entertain the notion on biblical grounds.
Even progressives in the church were apprehensive about this direct assault on the 'patriarchal' status quo, fearing that it would undermine the legitimacy of the church.
Scripture seems to speak quite clearly on women’s capacity for leadership in 1 Timothy 2:12. As St. Paul writes, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man."
But as advocates for women’s ordination argue, female religious leaders in the New Testament like Phoebe, Priscilla, Lydia, and Mary seemed to hold positions of greater respect than St. Paul suggests. Many point out that Phoebe is described as a deacon or deaconess (diakonos) in Romans, which would suggest that there was a model of female authority within the church.
However, the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, which claim apostolic succession and a direct ecclesiastical connection to the apostles, are defiantly against the practice and defend male-only holy orders as the orthodox teaching of the church.
On July 29, 1974, 11 female priests were ordained in the Episcopal Church. The act was largely symbolic, but real change soon followed. Those ordinations became legitimate in 1976 when the House of Bishops conditionally recognized them.
In response, hundreds of parishes broke away from the Episcopal Church as part of the Continuing Anglican movement, paving the way for the founding of the rival Anglican Church in North America in 2009. Ironically enough, that denomination is now split over women’s ordination.
Margo Guernsey’s new documentary “The Philadelphia Eleven” commemorates the 50th anniversary of this watershed moment through interviews with several of the surviving 11.
It’s clear that Guernsey sees women’s ordination as a righteous act of liberationist defiance progress; these women, she writes, “provide a vision for what a just and inclusive community looks like in practice.”
The women in the film depict their quest for greater female participation in the church as inspired by the civil rights movement. It was also an act of “obedience to the Spirit,” which took precedence over adherence to tradition.
The film admits how radical this was. Even progressives in the church were apprehensive about this direct assault on the “patriarchal” status quo, fearing that it would undermine the legitimacy of the church.
In retrospect, it’s clear that their fears were justified.
The ceremony caused extensive turmoil within the Episcopal Church. Several clergy involved had their careers severely damaged. Dozens of bishops and priests condemned the ceremony as an illegal farce, even as the women publicly defended their ordinations as valid. One quoted St. Paul during a television appearance: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).
It did little good in the short term, as none of the woman were able to find positions. Ultimately, however, they won. By 1988, the Episcopal Church would even ordinate its first female bishop.
“Half of the human population was acknowledged as being important enough to take on one of the strongest institutions in the world,” said Philadelphia 11 member Nancy Wittig.
That’s certainly one way to look at it. Another way is to acknowledge that the institution Wittig and her cohort defeated is now but a shadow of its former self.
The Episcopal Church has continued down the path the Philadelphia 11 set it on, abandoning traditional Christian teaching on other issues like sexuality and abortion. It revised its canons to the point that bishops aren’t allowed to deny women’s ordinations.
The church now is deeply committed to social justice and tolerance, and it does much admirable work in trying to address many of the world’s wrongs. But it is also on the precipice of demographic collapse and will functionally cease to exist by 2040.
The Philadelphia 11 may have turned the tide against the patriarchy within their church and given women permission to be priests, but the resulting schism may prove too deeply wounding to celebrate their victory beyond the passing of this generation. It leaves a film like “ThePhiladelphia Eleven” balancing awkwardly over the abyss.
Ben Bankas can't take a joke
Ben Bankas pondered fascism as he waited for the Cybertruck.
His enemies on the left have branded his comedy “right-wing fascist” bigotry. They’re not entirely wrong: He is right-wing, and his comedy is bigoted. One of his taglines is “I’m racist.” And there’s his Chinese human-monkey hybrid character:
Bankas radiates a kind of unpredictable energy that either offends or enthralls people, as tonight’s crowd would soon discover.
But does that really make him a fascist?
Bankas slumped in a black hoodie on a bench outside the Hampton Inn where he was staying. November darkness had descended over Tulsa, layering the air with an autumn cold.
He sprang up when the metallic shape of my friend’s Cybertruck glided into view. Everyone in the parking lot froze and gawked. A mother yanked her curious child away from the vehicle, muttering about bad people.
“Definitely a Kamala voter,” said Bankas as he slid into the back seat. “Anything Elon does is automatically fascist to liberals, and she is definitely a liberal.”
He immediately began chattering with my two friends, as the official photographers.
Two days earlier, Donald Trump had won the 2024 presidential election. And now Bankas was in Oklahoma, where every county has been Republican since 2000, so people were even happier than normal. In my little town outside Tulsa, people set off fireworks every night for a week.
Bankas, a Canadian, recently moved to Austin, Texas. He was happy with the Trump win. For one, he has a toddler, a little girl, and a baby boy on the way. Liberal nonsense is personal to a family man.
At 32, he feels a growing presence, the itch of fame and its potential, amplified by the buzz from the release of his fourth special, “Elect This."
Early in his career, he was inspired by Trump's statements about how the cure for depression is just working really hard. He thinks about it any time he wants to rest, like earlier that day, when he took an afternoon nap.
Hustle
On the drive to the Loony Bin, Bankas asked about Oklahoma, pulling out tidbits of local culture that would reappear in his set. Any anxieties were offset by the shiny, almost alien presence of the Cybertruck gliding through Tulsa’s quiet streets.
The recent change back to Standard Time made everything darker, just a smidge off-kilter. This intensified when we arrived at the Loony Bin, which occupies the gap between a Halloween store and a Cinergy, with a whiff of Red Lobster.
The crowd in the lobby went quiet as we entered, heads turning nervously, maybe stealing a glimpse of tonight’s headliner.
It’s hard to tell, in part because Bankas, as a persona, radiates a kind of unpredictable energy that either offends or enthralls people, as tonight’s crowd would soon discover.
Stout and forward-tilting, Bankas resembles a warthog of a running back, swift but still fond of a bit of cruelty.
Greenroom
In the greenroom, we raided the beer fridge. Soon, the coffee table succumbed to empty Miller Lights and recording equipment. Within ten minutes, we had to start a tab.
The club owner told us his unbelievable origin story, so traumatic that it was confusing. He and Bankas shared a few winky jokes, but moved on to small talk about various comedians. Later, the owner would complain that he had actually lost money on the show. He probably did, but it was hard to tell what he really meant.
My friends were amazed by how normal Bankas was. One of them kept forgetting that the occasion was a proper interview. To be fair, we all did, and by the end of the night, the waitress at the steakhouse said, “Lord have mercy I’m about to earn my money.”
Thirsty to attack
The only usable part of our interview came before Bankas walked out of the greenroom and onto the stage. A few cigarette breaks, some more beers, lots of pregame pacing — he was calibrating the chemical and physiological equation for a feverish set.
This was his locker room, and he was about to step out into the light and compete. That shakes anyone up.
"It's not always about being funny," he confided. "It’s about not screwing up."
His muffled anxiety made him more likeable, a vulnerability that contrasted sharply with his persona as a flamethrower who lives to offend. Defenses down, he talked about his childhood and his mother.
He mentioned how he played the violin as a kid but quit because he thought it was "gay."
He added, “It was just me and a bunch of Chinese kids, and my parents made me wear stupid sweater vests with a turtleneck.”
Freed of his stuffy winter outfits, he joined the hockey team, “because that's where all the cool kids were.”
Oddly enough, the position he played was left wing. But he also briefly played defense and scored a ton of goals, a dynamic that appears in his comedy: Even when he’s receding, he’s thirsty to attack.
After high school, Bankas played hockey at various levels, including single A, which he described as “just a bunch of people who thought they were gonna go to the NHL and be a**holes.”
He still plays sometimes, but not competitively since college.
Then he said, “I used to sell photocopiers.” He repeated the sentence. And again. After a pause: “I lied on my resume.”
Capacity
Bankas’ opening act was a laid-back and delightful local comedian who also shot video footage at the club. His routine was clean — a lovely performance.
Loony Bin’s room seats 250 people, but that night, only about fifteen showed up. And they were all crowded around the stage.
Bankas peeked out of the greenroom: “Is that everyone?” he asked, then returned to the pre-fight hype session, an iPod in one ear blaring feel-good rap. The warthog was ready to feed.
The set
His entrance song puttered out of the house PA like the horn of a lowrider: “Can’t Take a Joke” by Drake. He paused for a couple of moments, as if he expected the audio quality to improve.
Once onstage, Bankas suppressed an “uh-oh” as the shape of the stage and the angle of the lights and the closeness of the crowd collided with his buzz from beers and Zyns.
His opening joke was more of a hemorrhage than a show-starter: “People have lost some f***ing minds because Trump won! And all the retarded people don't understand what's going on. By all the f***ing dumb women — the female, homosexual part of our society, right? They're all dumb, retarded, gay people and f***ing women that get like 40 abortions before they’re 30 years old.”
It just plopped out like vomit.
He was testing new material, following the recent release of “Elect This.” This should have been a neat moment when the audience gets to witness a comedian honing his craft.
Instead, he got sloppy. He told some great jokes. But the performance lacked flow, and Bankas had no poise.
Usually displaying great timing, with his pauses and sentence fragments, tonight Bankas fumbled through his material, prodding at his iPhone mid-set to scroll through notes. Dead air, marked by the unique silence of people looking down and scrolling.
This kind of set only works if the comedian steps away with an air of humility. “I failed a lot during that set, but I think I made some headway for the next special.”
Instead, Bankas leaned into warthog mode.
Hey, Joe
About 15 minutes in, he abruptly shifted to the audience. He’s known for his crowd work, especially hecklers. But tonight there was no heckling and hardly any crowd. Just a little gathering of friendlies, eager for a laugh on a Thursday night.
So Bankas torched them.
Over the course of his 90-minute set, the mood in the room soured.
Bankas berated a guy, an engineer. For the rest of the show, he didn’t laugh, and his wife occasionally rubbed his back supportively. I spoke with several audience members who felt the same.
Bankas’ meanness seemed like a crutch, a way to distract the crowd from his fumbling. And this approach was incredibly alienating for someone eager to build a giant audience. But he didn’t seem to notice this.
He believes that he should be part of Joe Rogan’s collective of famous comedians. Maybe he should. He mentioned Rogan a lot throughout the night. He actually closed his set by promising to fill the room next time he comes to Tulsa and to bring Joe Rogan with him.
Growing up
Bankas’ vituperative style has roots in hockey locker-room vulgarity and rebellion, which emerged when he attended Harbord Collegiate Institute in Toronto, a school known for the actors, comedians, and academics among its alumni.
His mom was a high school teacher. He threw wild parties at his house.
“The black kids loved it,” Bankas told me. “But they'd also trash … not really my house, but they'd run along cars on my street and just trash every car, and the cops would show up. Everybody was trying to sue my mom.”
His friend Jamal was one of the first people to compliment Bankas’ sense of humor, impressed by Bankas’ willingness to shout the N-word.
Bankas’ early career took him from Toronto’s local comedy clubs to his first professional gig in Sudbury, Ontario, where he performed in a sports bar and spent the night at a Super 8 motel.
Clique
In the polarized ecosystem of modern stand-up comedy, where subtle hints of conservatism used to be cloaked with disclaimers, Joe Rogan’s endorsement of Donald Trump marked a breakthrough. Comedians like Shane Gillis, Theo Von, and Tony Hinchcliffe also played a crucial role.
From the start, Bankas rejected this neutrality, planting himself squarely in the anti-woke camp without a whiff of hesitation or apology.
Bankas doesn’t just poke fun at liberals; he dismantles the “woke” worldview with a sledgehammer and finds humor in the debris. For him, the self-righteousness of progressive culture is a gold mine of contradictions.
These moralists are obsessed with identifying oppressors and victims yet fail to see their own hypocrisy. They denounce wealth but worship celebrity, preach representation while silencing dissent, and demand inclusivity but shame anyone who doesn’t comply with their dogmas.
Something about the way they squeal and whine amuses Bankas. He likes to see how far he can push the boundaries before they spaz.
Take Bankas’ own brief foray into politics. During a run for mayor of Toronto, he donned a rainbow suit and tie on the campaign trail, promising to “make Toronto fun again.”
He ran on a platform of unapologetic offensiveness, an approach that earned him a few hundred votes and the undivided attention of the Toronto Sun. His candidacy was a joke, but it was a joke with teeth. He had brought his anti-woke philosophy from the stage and unleashed it on the real world.
Turn on the lights
Back in the greenroom, Bankas was revved up like a prizefighter who just earned a belt. After a quick meet-and-greet, we all piled back into the Cybertruck and set course to B.J.’s Restaurant & Brewhouse. Bankas hadn’t been there, and I had promised steak. Everything fell apart after that, in an uninteresting way.
But the drive there was peaceful. No jokes, no laughter, just a glide, a drift.
“Turn on the Lights” by Future blared from the speakers. Windows open.
We floated through each quiet silhouette of Tulsa at night. Golf balls of cold air rushed into the Cybertruck. The pale yellow fabric of street lights flashed at us like paparazzi.
Performance review
I think, ultimately, I liked him, but he did make fun of every single person he interacted with all night, including me, repeatedly, with a bravado that I admire.
He wrestles with the offensive-funny ratio I wrote about in my profile of Gavin McInnes.
Offensive comedy is dangerous and beautiful. The more offensive the material, the funnier it has to be, a rule that Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, and George Carlin cemented.
But Bankas constantly risks excess that would make his offensive words hackneyed, much like the brilliant Ricky Gervais.
Bankas is an incendiary comedian with a talent for crowd work, but he’s still a few steps away from takeoff. It’s time for his comedy to mature. What his performance lacks most is storytelling. He needs to build scenes, characters, and anecdotes. Not by softening his approach, but by grounding it. A strong offensive joke doesn’t just shock; it spotlights the human condition.
From there, if he’s lucky, Bankas can become a philosopher-king like Chappelle, Burr, Carlin, and their ilk.
Of course, plenty of talented comics never make this move. Stephen Wright, Dimetri Martin, Mitch Hedberg, and Rodney Dangerfield all excel with one-two punch blitzkrieg delivery, but even they weave story into their sets.
Punching all around
In a world where liberal and conservative comedians are waging war over who gets to define what’s funny, Bankas’ commitment to punching in every direction reminds us that culture is athletic, something we have to engage with and perform.
The left wants Bankas to be held accountable; the right wants to claim him as its own, but Bankas resists either label, for the most part.
As a provocateur, his persona thrives in the tension between the audience’s expectations and his own refusal to cater to them. His persona doesn’t want applause; he wants the visceral response, the kind that shakes people out of their comfort zones.
Comedy has always had a communal aspect, a way of determining who belongs. Laughter is the signal; if you laugh along, you’re in on the joke.
So you either laugh with Bankas, signaling your willingness to challenge boundaries, or you sit stone-faced, unamused, excluded from the insiders’ club. This is the essence of Bankas’ style: communal in its alienation, cannonball architecture.
At a glance, this maneuver looks straightforward. But Bankas is pulling a ton of levers. Imitation is fundamental to his process. Mimicry can easily spike the offensive-funny ratio, especially if the impression features any kind of failing or disfigurement — terrain that Bankas uses for joyrides.
Henri Bergson observed that deformity is funny only when it can be convincingly mimicked by someone who is able-bodied. But this decree takes us right back to beauty of comedy’s paradox: The only comedians who can say “retarded” are the ones who can imitate retardation.
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