Ep. 141: Barry Blaustein Talks Professional Wrestling, Donald Trump, and Eddie Murphy

Writer, movie producer, and director Barry Blaustein is the guest on this week's episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show. Barry is the writer of such great comedies as Coming to America, The Nutty Professor, and Boomerang. Barry also helped to write Eddie Murphy's legendary skits on the TV show Saturday Night Live. And of course, Barry Blaustein narrated and produced the amazing documentary about professional wrestling Beyond the Mat. 

During this episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show, Barry and Chauncey discuss their shared love of professional wrestling, how Donald Trump is a performance artist, how he made Beyond the Mat, what it was like trying to tell the true life behind the scenes stories of the (then) World Wrestling Federation, talk about Jake "the Snake" Roberts, and some of the "good" and "bad" things about professional wrestling today. Barry also shares some stories about working with and writing for Eddie Murphy as well as the challenge of being creative for a living. 

Jared Yates Sexton is also a guest on this week's episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show. He is a journalist and writer who has extensively covered Donald Trump's campaign and now presidency. This is the third time that Jared has stopped by the virtual bar and salon and he has some great stories to tell about how Trump and the Right-wing media are causing violence and other problems within families and communities, offers some thoughts about Trump and the Russia scandal, and ponders how Trump's regime may end. Jared also loves professional wrestling, so of course, he and Chauncey have to talk about the WWE and Brock Lesnar's upcoming battle with Samoa Joe. 

In this week's episode Chauncey DeVega shares some insights about a crazy week that included an attack on a Republican congressional baseball game in Alexandria, violence by conservatives against Democrats, liberals, and their other enemies, and how a racist thug cop got away with the de facto lynching of Philando Castile. 

At the end of this week's episode of the podcast, Chauncey shares a story about gun violence and other foolishness at Chuck E. Cheese restaurants in Chicago.