Military Daily News. Tracy Morgan returns to stand- up in Netflix special 'Staying Alive'In June 2. Tracy Morgan was returning to New York from a show in Delaware when the minibus in which he was riding was struck from behind by a Wal- Mart truck. Fellow comic James “Jimmy Mack” Mc. Nair was killed; Morgan was hospitalized with broken bones and a brain injury. He was briefly in a coma. Almost two years later, Morgan made his return to the stage with his Picking Up the Pieces tour. An October appearance in Red Bank, N. J., not far from where the accident happened, just started streaming on Netflix, which has been investing in high- profile stand- up specials by comics including Dave Chappelle, Louis C. K. A gag transports him into a John Travolta white suit and onto the stage, which is set with a table and armchair into which he occasionally collapses. One suspects this may be a matter of necessity, but mostly, he is on his feet and moving, encouragingly, and carrying an hour of material in his head. There is a shape to it; with a few video projections and lighting cues, you could call it a theater piece. Jokes and digressions are threaded on the story of his accident and recovery — in the coma, coming out of the coma, after the coma, on Earth and in heaven: “When I was in that coma, y’all, I saw that white light, but I didn’t go to it, because I thought it was police. I got warrants, man. You can’t get into heaven with priors.”To be sure, the hour is rife with words I can’t write in this paper. Morgan has provoked controversy for his jokes before, including editorial chastisement over remarks about homosexuality (for which he apologized). As with all comedy, mileage varies from listener to listener, and for any given listener, from joke to joke; you don’t decide what to laugh at, after all, you just laugh, or you don’t. I laughed at times, winced at others. But Morgan stays mostly within bounds here; not everyone will like his impression of a joint- rolling Jesus, or his sexual meditations on Caitlyn Jenner, or his taste for breast milk (“and Splenda”). Apart from taking shots at members of his own family (“because of my settlement, they think I’m supposed to pay for everybody’s funeral”), he stays largely positive. His recovery is not only physical but also spiritual — a pitch for self- acceptance, self- improvement and maturity, relatively speaking. He argues for fidelity, restraint and age- appropriate dancing: “When you get to a certain age, this is dancing,” he says, demonstrating. Moving in close, it gives us a glimpse of the comic as human, even more intimate than his altogether unembarrassed prepared remarks.
The second-term Democratic senator, who once made a living satirizing politicians, envisions an. In 2008, rookie journalist Jay Bahadur forms a half-baked plan to embed himself among the pirates of Somalia. He ultimately succeeds in providing the first close-up.
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