Darin Murphy

Benjamin Franklin once wrote that wine is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy [beer has often replaced wine in countless misquotes]. And the same is even truer for laughter. "Laughter is wine for the soul," said playwright Sean O'Casey, "The hilarious declaration made by man...

May 1, 2011: I tucked my son into bed after a pleasant and uneventful Sunday evening. Soon afterward, the reports began pouring in about the death of Osama bin Laden and uneventful became, well, eventful! As my wife and son slept, the rest of the country sprang to life. Americans...

Sarah Palin really, really wants to be your president. She wants it so badly, in fact, that she elected herself to submit the Republican response to President Obama's speech in Arizona before he even delivered it. This preemptive move basically amounted to a taped audition for the role...

Their movies and countless still images are proof that they were the most photogenic foursome in history. Their records speak for themselves, possessing a magic that contemporary artists still seek to capture. But very little evidence exists to effectively convey the experience of the Beatles as a live act, which...

Two female icons from the 1960's passed away last week, Lucy O'Donnell Vodden and Susan Atkins. These two women didn't know about one another, and the only common thread they share is that their stories intersect with that of the Beatles. This is where their similarities end. The rest is...

Sarah Palin has given us all a great gift, and her timing could not possibly have been better. On the eve of our independence day she officially declared her surrender in her imaginary war and set her country and her state free from her grasp. So many have speculated on...

We couldn't ask for a better favor this morning than the one handed to us by Barack Obama and Dick Cheney. At no other time, not even during the election, have we been able to see such a clear juxtaposition between where we are now as a country and where...

For nearly a decade, every day has been Opposite Day in America. For eight years, the White House and its surrogates on cable news and talk radio sold us every story, every scenario as the opposite of what it actually was.

Black was white. Night was day. Illegal was legal...

In an unprecedented moment in history, Governor Sarah Palin was sworn in today by the far right wing of the Republican Party as the first female President of The Real America.

In a ceremony filmed by 24 creator Joel Surnow, Palin raised her right hand and placed her left on...

It's nearly impossible to grasp the sheer gravity of this moment. All watched with gaping mouths, transfixed by a numbing mixture of pride and disbelief as Barack Obama appeared in public for the first time as the next President. All newly elected presidents have a different demeanor once clearly elected,...

Dane Cook has this routine where he says that someday he wants to do something - and he doesn't know what - that makes the nearest person to him react by exclaiming "Are you out of your fucking mind?!"

Then the next thing he does - and again it's not...

Democrats hoping to win elections this fall by racing to the center should sit down and have a conversation with Buzz Aldrin.

The second man to set foot on the moon on Apollo 11 is also one of NASA's leading authorities on the subject of rendezvous in space. This...

Four years ago, a slight 51% of the electorate decided for the rest of us that we didn't need leadership so much as protection -- from heartland-targeting terrorists, trial lawyers, gay newlyweds and other imaginary bogeymen. Now that the 8-year leadership gap has exposed so many signs of an empire...

Dear Barack,

First of all let me just say that I am, like, your biggest fan, oh my God! I absolutely love watching you speak and I'm moved every time I hear or see you. There is no one I'd rather see in the White House than you. However, I'm...

Hardly anyone knows it, but we've just lost another Beatle. Not the most famous, influential, mysterious or essential, but perhaps the most indispensable one. His name is Neil Aspinall.

When it all comes down to it, the Beatles were a six-member team. You'll rarely hear their names mentioned and...

If there was any doubt before, which there wasn't, it's gone now. Watching Nancy Pelosi on The View yesterday morning provided the final proof that the backbone of the House is only as strong as its speaker. Her body language said it all. There she sat in the center of...

Let's say you're a dad. You have a couple of sons in their late teens who are smart enough, well mannered enough and ambitious enough, but at this stage they are also hormone-driven, ideological and rebellious. They constantly lie about their activities and make bad decisions that cost you...

Our world is one of global iconicism. Living among us are a tiny Korean dictator who wants to be Elvis, a Saudi jihadist who thinks he's Mohammed, a U.S. president who flips between Clint Eastwood and Johnny Carson, his top advisor who channels Napoleon, and a vice president believed by...

Bill Clinton gets it at least. This morning, while discussing Iraq with NBC's Matt Lauer, he recalled the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1988. "They did it very rapidly", he said. "And hundreds of Russian troops were killed on the way out of the country, because they presented themselves as...

At the risk of joining the ranks of politicians and pundits who use the "I'm no expert" disclaimer before pretending to be experts, lemme start by saying:

I'm not a comedian...although I once gave it a shot. My first night on the comic stage I had to follow Bill Hicks...