Status: Single
City: Long Beach
State: California
Country: US
Signup Date: 9/8/2005
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Saturday, July 11, 2009
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Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities
How this will work. I learned I could become a better comic by breaking down other comedians acts. This weekend is Comedy Centrals blow out stand-up comedy weekend. So I'm watching every special to review them for my site and adding bios to my site for the comedians that I haven't yet added. These are the specials I will have reviewed by tonight.
Demetri Martin: Person
 My first impression of Demetri Martin was: How old is this guy twelve? My second impression of Demetri Martin was: Damn this is one impressive twelve-year-old. His material is fast paced, intelligent, unobtrusive and clean. He has sort of a less nonsensical Steven Wright sense of humor. It’s not off the wall. And he’s not so much politically compelling, like a George Carlin or a Chris Rock, but he does manage to take on obscure topics, write the crap out of them, deliver that material with very unique point of view and color it with musical interludes [that don’t seem forced] and visual aids [that are impressive even when drawn in magic marker on a two dollar sketch pad.] Without reservation, I would call Person the best special of Comedy Central’s blow out stand-up comedy weekend.
Obscure but very funny topics include how the hell does paper beat rock in rock paper scissors? It should be rock, dynamite with a cuttable wick, scissors. By now, I was already impressed with the straightforward stand-up comedy. But when Martin broke out the notepad for the visual aids, I thought, oh no, here come the gimmicks. Never more than a magic marker against a simple sketchpad, the visual aids were better than the stand-up comedy. And the stand-up comedy was good. Some of the highlights included a break down of Hummer owners. Apparently, 43 percent are tough guys. 27 percent are pricks. 15 percent are douche bags and 14 percent are dildoes. Then Martin spends a few minutes explaining how hard it was to make the word dildo plural. As he goes back to the stand-up, Martin analyzes common wisdom. Is the glass is half empty or full? Well, before you label someone an optimist or a pessimist, shouldn’t you ask yourself a glass of what?
By now I’d already given the special an excellent review. But when Martin showed off his talent to set his material to piano, harmonica and guitar, I was oversold. A lot of Martin’s comedy is introspective. It comes from asking questions like, what would a game of hot potato be like among a group of starving Ethiopians? Would it be called Hot Potato, or My Potato? Shouldn’t fishing be called tricking and then killing? Why don’t we have negative cakes? And does anyone else consider it odd that the gay community took the entire rainbow for themselves. “One group took all of refractive light. Pretty selfish gays.” Honestly, Demetri Martin: Person is one of the best stand-up comedy specials I’ve seen in years. It’s well written. It’s well delivered. And it shows talent across several arenas without ever seeming forced or gimmicky. Martin is a Yale Graduate who dropped out of NYU Law School to pursue a career in comedy. He has already won three major comedy awards including a shared Emmy, a Barry Award and a Premier Comedy Award. Based on this special, and there are a lot more awards to come if this DVD is any indication of what he is capable of.
Jeff Dunham: Spark of Insanity
Along with Arguing with Myself, Spark of Insanity was one of Amazon’s best selling DVDs when it was released. The Comedy Central special featured updated versions of classic Dunham characters including the grumpy old Walter, the infamous purple Woozle Peanut and his comic foil Jose the talking Jalapeño on a stick. The special also introduces two new characters Achmed the dead terrorist and Melvin the Superhero Guy. Dunham himself opens the hour and a half special without any puppets by making fun of himself and his wimpy, light blue Prius. Of course, both Walter and Peanut are conscious of his crappy car, and use it as fodder for their own acts. Maybe I liked the story about the Prius because it reminds me how my own SUV chews up gas and of all the days I wished I could turn the Explorer into a very expensive lawn ornament too. Or maybe, it was just that I was impressed to see someone I think of as a ventriloquist doing pure stand-up comedy better than most comedians do it.
One big advantage Dunham has is he’s a traveling comedy show. He has his own opener, Walter. He has two features: Achmed and Melvin. And he has time-tested headliner, who incidentally has the trademark energy that you’d expect from a comic expected to close out any comedy show, Peanut. It’s like he has a whole comedy production in a trunk. Of course, in all special’s Walter is the first up. Walter of course is that cranky old senior citizen we all know. He’s grumpy and he isn’t getting along with his wife. “I think my house is haunted because every time I come home, I here a girls voice saying: Get out! Get out!” Marriage is like an institution, but so is Alkatraz.
Dunham creates threads that tie all his characters together. Walter spends a little time on material that Achmed the dead terrorist will present from his own point of view later in the show. When discussing suicide bombers Walter quips, “72 virgins in heaven. It will be 72 guys. What about 72 broads that know what the hell they’re doing.”
Next up is Achmed. Achmed the dead terrorist was introduced in this special. Achmed, who isn’t Muslim, usually barks out threats like, “Silence! I kill you.” When asked what kind of terrorist Achmed is, the reply is a terrifying terrorist. But, what makes the character work is how he seems like a guy who wants to blow everything in sight up, but he also seems that he might be okay if someone would just give him a hug. Dunham brilliantly inquires about Walter’s comments about the 72 virgins in Heaven while Achmed makes fun of the Prius. I won’t spend a lot of time on Melvin the Super Hero guy. He has his moments, but overall the second new character is not as original or interesting as the other characters in the show.
Peanut, as always, closes out the show. Unlike Walter, Peanut is youthful and energetic. Unlike Achmed, Peanut isn’t a dark character. In fact, he’s almost terminally happy. The banter between Peanut intentionally messing up Dunham’s name, over and over again alone is worth the price of the special. After about ten minutes with Peanut playing off Dunham, Dunham’s breaks out his last puppet, Jose the talking Jalapeño on a stick. In this special we learn Jose has a girlfriend. This leads to Peanut’s question, “What is she a freakin’ pickle on a pencil?” The banter between the two characters is really the best way to top off an excellent show. The two characters sarcasm really compliments each other and brings the laughs to a higher level, and a higher level is always a good place to end a show.
Bill Cosby Himself
 Bill Cosby: Himself was a 1983 stand-up comedy film featuring the comedic routines of Bill Cosby. Filmed before a live audience at the Hamilton Place Theatre, in Hamilton, Ontario Cosby the film also showcases Cosby's trademark conversational style of stand-up comedy. Written and directed by Cosby the special begins with a video entitled Just the Ten of Us that gives the listeners a real idea where Cosby is going with this routine, familiar. There are three major topics drugs, the dentist and his family [both growing up and now]. The first topic, which is drugs, is mostly observational and really shows off Cosby’s acting chops. His routine about the dentist is still a classic moment in stand-up comedy to this day. And the bits on family had my mom, my dad, myself and my sister pointing at each other as he described our family, which was obviously a lot like his.
One thing Cosby does well is to illustrate his stories so well that you get the punchline, even if you’re not the target of the joke. The material on how we celebrate the week by drinking through the weekend, only to destroy ourselves as soon as we go back to work, would be funny to someone who never touches a drop. While he rarely curses on any level, when he does get a little edgy it makes that material even stronger. “I asked what is the deal with Cocaine? He said it intensifies your personality. I said, yeah, but what if you’re an asshole.” The material that has Cosby conversing with his dentist, with a mouth full of Novocain, is Cosby at his best. It’s one of the most imitated and the most remembered moments in stand-up comedy history. The material about Cosby’s family, which was the best part, is special because it’s about every family. “Do you think, God put me on Earth to be your slave?” I don’t know how often my mom asked me this. “But, because of my father, I thought my name was Jesus Christ. My brother Russell thought his name was Damn It.” The way the material builds on itself could be a lesson in writing comedy. “I always wanted to get some calf brains. When my mom hit me, I’d throw them on the floor. But knowing my mom, it wouldn’t work. She’d just say: You put your brains back in. What’s the matter boy, have you lost your mind?”
There’s a reason the reviews at IMBD say this film should be required viewing for parents. This is a classic stand-up comedy routine. It’s comedy at its cleanest and its funniest. It should also be required viewing for any comic who wants to become a famous story teller in the classic Cosby tradition.
Chris Rock: Never Scared
Like a good portion of the comedians recording specials, this one was recorded live in Washington D.C. That probably makes the political jokes go over that much better. Never Scared was Rock's fourth HBO special after the immensely popular Bring In The Pain and the follow up special: Bigger, Blacker. Rock starts out talking about his newly born daughter and how it's now her responsibility to raise her so she doesn't have daddy issues. There are some brilliant observations about men who eat at strip clubs followed by comments like, "I know Rwandan refugees that wouldn't eat at a strip club. Titties and tater tots don't mix." There's a few predictable jokes about Sigfreid and Roy, but Rock also doesn't waste a lot of time on them.
When Rock is the most brilliant is when he's talking politics. His observation that we shouldn't call ourself tough because we took over Iraq in two weeks when you couldn't take over Baltimore in two weeks is both brilliant and true. I love how he ties to illegal immigration debate to accepted racism. "First they said, fuck the French. And I said, okay, that sounds reasonable. Then they said, fuck the Arabs. Okay, they attacked us, that sounds reasonable. But then when they said, fuck the illegal immigrants, I said hold on, because I knew the jews were next." I love Rock's innate ability to tell the truth, even when his audience may disagree, without offering the slightest hint of appology for his point of view.
I also love the way he brings to light simple truths that political leaders seemed to have long forgot. Sometimes those thruths, in this case referring to blind loyalty to you political party, are as simple as, "Anyone who makes up their mind before they've heard the issues is a damn fool." There are also brilliant observations on the difference between being rich and being wealthy. Shaq is rich, the guy who signs his paycheck is wealthy. Throughout his first four specials, it is pretty clear to me that Rock is heir to the throne of Carlin. He is just as brilliant, just as insightful and I'd consider myself lucky if my best material was as good as his worst. This special is not quite as good as Bigger, Blacker, but it's still very good overall.
Lewis Black: Red, White And Screwed
 A funny thing will happen if you read Lewis Black’s biography. If you haven’t seen him on stage, you’ll wonder where the punchlines are. If you have seen him, his voice will take over when you read that same biography and the subtle anger and carefully chosen inflection will turn that biography into a whole other book. The appreciation of Black comes almost entirely from his delivery and his talent for simply bringing to the forefront simple, yet long forgotten, common sense. Black begins the special with one of the more interesting history lessons. Apparently, Comedy Central chose the Warner Center to tape the special because the Kennedy Center had counted how many times Black used the word fuck in his last special, and had come up with a cap. Consequently, Black would have been allowed to tape at the Kennedy Center, but only if he never mentioned where he was taping special during the show which would have been aptly retitled, “Lewis Black: Live From Fucking Nowhere.”
Black clearly has a political agenda. But if you couldn’t gather that from the title, you probably also need help feeding yourself. In Red, White and Screwed, Black takes on Bush, Cheney and the war in Iraq. He also sarcastically asserts that Vietnam is so evil that they don’t even have color and he’s pretty sure that it’s the place where the evil monkey’s came from in the Wizard of Oz. Sometimes, it’s not so much a punchline that Lewis is sharing it’s common sense. “Anyone who makes up their mind on an issue because they’ve heard both sides is an idiot,” Lewis says as he rips apart Bush’s response to hurricane Katrina and George Bush himself. “As I listened to our president, I realized that one of us was nuts. And for the first time, it wasn’t me.”
Black is angry. He’s sarcastic and he’s caustic. “I think what prepared Michael Brown to run Fema was his experience as an Arabian horse breeder.” His material almost always has a political or a social undercurrent. That said, were it being translated to a group of hearing impaired comedy fans, it just wouldn’t have an impact, because so much of Black’s material relies on his delivery for you to get the joke. The result is that were laughing at the guy throwing the temper tantrum that we would like to throw, but haven’t been allowed to ever since the day we became gainfully employed. Black makes it work because he somehow tows the line right between social savant and the passive aggressive guy who are about to take away in a straightjacket and lock away in a small room in Bellevue until his family forgets that he’s gone. Overall, the special is above average, it just misses being compelling and funny at the same time.
Gabriel Iglesias: Hot and Fluffy
About four years ago I was waiting for the Ice House auditions held for a lower-emd Sunday night show in their side room, the Annex. When I arrived this obnoxious Hispanic comic, incapable of turning it off and beyond embarrassing every time an attractive woman would appear in the parking lot. I was very close to telling several of them, he’s a comic. He’s joking. Please refrain from calling 911. All I could ask myself at the time was, who is this obnoxious guy and enough with the old jokes. I think that comic was Gabriel Iglesias, looking back. And there’s a reason that first impressions shouldn’t be what you base your entire life on. Sometimes, people prove you wrong. Throughout the special Gabriel, who looks somewhat like a cross between John Candy and George Lopez, does several things very well. First, he doesn’t tie everything into his weight or ethnicity, though he doesn’t avoid the subjects either. A lot of the laughs come from Iglesias’s cartoonish laugh as he revels in his own material. Few comics can get away with that and not come off as annoying. Mostly because he comes off as so likeable, Iglesias does pull it off. But unlike most comics who over deliver the goods, there’s some pretty solid material underneath the sales pitch.
A lot of Gabriel’s material is simply about his friends, his upbringing, while quite of it hinges on his interaction with cops. Apparently when you’re pulled over there are two levels: I can work with this and, I’m going to jail. There’s nothing controversial or political in this special. And it’s relatively clean in its presentation. A few really old jokes work their way into the set, like the ones that imply cops like donuts. However, Iglesias presents that material in a way that’s a lot more unique than I’ve seen other comics deliver the same line over the past ten years. Occasionally, Iglesias comes up with a gem of a line, like when he approaches a friend’s home in the ghetto and revs his Volkswagen bug in a display of arrogant pride for the way he’s just had it tricked out, only to have a bystander yell: “Look, it’s the fat and the furious.” Some of the better material lampoons how commercials always use sex to sell their product and often times you can’t tell what the product is until someone speaks those last words: “Pepsi.” And, I must admit that I’m a little bias here, because I’ve never been a fan of this type of over hyped, overly energetic comedy. That’s because usually, when you need more energy to sell a product, a lot of the time that product would have seemed inferior to the competition without the hype that built it up. In this case, I’ll give Iglesias credit. He proved me wrong twice.
D.L. Hughley: Unapologetic
Sometimes audiences pay too much attention to words and forget the context in which they’re spoken. Just because the material is blue doesn’t mean that it’s devoid of content. Unapologetic is a sadly underrated special because of some of those viewers who only pay attention to how many times the comic says fuck. Well, honestly, that’s just his personality as it presents a very well written special that has some biting insight as to politics and current events. I really enjoyed the way the conversational tone brought out the absurdities of president politics without making you feel like you needed to run to a newspaper, take a dictionary off the shelf or pick up a copy of USA Today at the newsstand to understand the subject matter of the special. “A senior citizen, a black guy and a woman are running for president. Doesn’t it sound like I’m about to tell a bar joke?” That’s a damn good observation.
One of the best highlights, that shows how committed Hughley is to speaking the uncensored truth was reflecting on Don Imus. “Why was anyone surprised that a racist like this would say anything racist? And calling those players nappy-headed hoes was wrong, because they weren’t hoes.” But then Hughley’s tirade on the definition of nappy and why some black women won’t get their hair wet was histerical. And, I really appreciated the fact that he didn’t cow-tow to one side or the other of the playing field. He’s unapologetically honest when it might offend his white listeners and his black listeners. He’s simply presenting the world from a unique and honest point of view and not apologizing for the way he sees it along the way. When I wrote the article, truth is the core of comedy, that’s exactly what I meant. And I think that’s where the title comes from: I’m going to be unapologetically honest for the next hour, now deal with it.
Not all the material is political. There’s also some good personal material about his family. “I told my mom, I’m gonna run away. She said, ‘Ain’t nobody gonna take care of your ass but me.’” Okay, maybe that’s funnier to me because my dad said something very similar when I threatened to run away at eight years old. I’m pretty sure he would have packed my bags. Also, if you’re a comic, study how the Hughley turns the character Jose into a recurring call back throughout the set. It’s one of the most original uses of a call back that I’ve seen in a one hour set. Also study the way he takes material that lampoons the people you hear every day in the news that seem to lack the most basic of common sense. For example, if you dump someone and they invite you to go skydiving, say no, they might not have your best interest at heart. Unapologetic isn’t quite on the level of Chris Rock, but it’s still one of the best specials with a political edge that I’ve seen in the last few years and it shows clearly how Hughley wound up on the prestigious Kings of Comedy tour.
Dane Cook: ISOlated Incident
I'll catch hell from other comics for giving this special a good review but Cook deserves it this time around. I didn't get interested in hearing this one until I heard Cook interviewed on Olivia Wilder's show on Blog Talk Radio, and realized that there was something deeply personal about it. The special takes place shortly after Cook lost both his mother and father in the space of nine months. If your used to seeing those charictures of Cook as an overanimated borderline schizophrenic Jim Carrey on MadTV, that's not the Dane Cook you see in this special.
Ironically, Cook begins in the last place I'd expect, politics. That's actually the most forgetable part of the show. And the opening few minutes gives you a poor idea of how good this special really is. Cook doesn't start to shine until he talks about cleaning out his Facebook contacts and how when we sometimes hit delete, it's like we're deleting that person from existence. I'm not really giving too much away here, because what makes the joke, is how Cook acts that out. But deleting contacts from Facebook is more of a setup for talking about his mom who recently passed away from cancer and how he just can't delete her name. The way he turns that into a joke is clever anc classy, especiallyy for anyone who understands what having a parent with a good sense of humor is like, which is why I won't ruin the bit here.
I also loved how Cook made fun of himself
when tackling all the Dane Cook Sucks sites. "After I read all these
Dane Cook sucks pages I thought, this Dance Cook is a real Douche Bag,
and I am not a fan." However, the special becomes relentlessly funny when Cook reads a heartless email from Anonymous @ Yahoo.COM, how it affected his day-to-day life after his parents passed, the follow up appollogy from Anonymous @ Yahoo.COM and how he had to choose between the high road and the low road to respond. Most of the material is a little subdued and not as over the edge as you might expect out of Cook. There is a point where he talks about finding a dirtiest whore possible, where the special is every sick, twisted joke you'd expect. But when he talks about women asking, "What would you do?" in relationships, there's a simple, subdued truth to his comedy. And it works very well in this special.
Brian Regan: The Epitome Of Hyperbole
 Comics who like Brian Regan almost stand in awe of his ability to explore mundane subjects and somehow attack them from a squeaky clean point of view. It’s almost as if the comic had discovered the Loch Ness monster by finding a successful comic that doesn’t resort to saying fuck. That part of Brian Regan’s talent is a little overrated. As a result, The Epitome of Hyperbole is good, but it’s not Regan at his best. The special is largely uneven. Some bits are brilliant, particularly the opening bit that makes fun of the common cliché: “One thing lead to another.” Hitler failed art and one thing lead to another. However, that’s also a lot funnier if you have enough of a background in history that you already know that’s exactly where Hitler started getting so pissed off and then to see Regan act it out is the icing on the cake.
Some of the material is a little too predictable. “I took a speed reading class and my pages per minute went way up, but my comprehension plummeted.” I know about five comics that have come up with this line on their own. I think Regan gets away with some of these weaker lines like because he is so animated and committed with his gestures and facial expressions. He’s almost like Jim Carrey after the sleeping pills start to set in. However, there is also some material in the special that comes from jokes so old that Regan should be embarrassed to present it as original. The best example is adding “Os” to words in Spanish because he wasn’t paying attention in class and fail-O-ed. Whenever, I hear any version of this joke at an open mic, I just want to cringe.
Some of the better material is centered on crime and punishment. In particular he draws a parallel line between how ridiculous it is to have a crime like loitering and how manslaughter, on the other hand sounds like the worst type of crime you could ever commit. Then he cats both characters out and has them meet in prison. One who didn’t just kill a man, but slaughtered him, and another who is trying to sound dangerous while admitting to fellow cellmates his badass crime was loitering. While, the special deserves at least a solid three star review, Regan just never has the relateability of other clean comics like Bill Cosby. He’s good, but before he becomes the epitome of comedy, the special will require a few more takes.
Ralphie May: Prime Cut
Ralphie May: Prime Cut is a step down from Just Correct. But May doesn’t step that far. The opening material about mullets probably plays better in a rural area where lines like, “Here Nascar, Nascar, Nascar,” appeal to the rednecks that relate the mullet material in the first row. Usually, May doesn’t really focus on his weight issues. He gets it out of the way in the beginning of the set and then moves on. This special is the exception, and it kind of holds May back. To be fair, the special was also taped after loosing 270 pounds, so he’s got a reason to focus on it. In pervious specials, a few jokes about applauding the fat man making his way to the stage would have been the end of the fat material. In Prime Cut, May continues on the subject for about ten extra minutes as he talks about the three enemies of fat people: treadmills, wicker furniture and booths. He also spends a little time talking about how he likes to watch the food channel like he’s watching porn. “They said the steak was extra moist, that’s just not fair.”
May is much better when he starts to talk about relationships. One of the biggest rounds of applause he gets during the special is telling men that they have a choice in relationships. They can be happy or they can be right. Anyone who’s subtly and innocently corrected their girlfriend for something that shouldn’t be a big deal for anyone except those on unreality will realize quickly that he’s right. I also enjoy May’s talent for translating what the guy says into what the girl hears. It’s the old men are from Mars women are from Venus tactic in comedy. I realize that the method is a little old, but May is one of the best comics at presenting those translations and making them feel real. “What I said is I’ll get the garbage after my show’s over. What she heard was shut up bitch.”
The very best material involves May going on a rant to expose Dr. Phil as a man trader while suggesting the best way to maintain a healthy relationship is to lie to each other. You know how much he hates Dr. Phil about three words into the rant. According to May, women are only brutally honest after the relationship falls apart and they want to crush a man’s self esteem with comments like, “And by the way, I never came.” Overall, Prime Cut is neither May’s best special, not is it his worst. His rants seem uncharacteristically subdued, almost as if the weight lost has exhausted May to the point where some of his trademark passion has been exorcized from the set. If you’re a fan you won’t be disappointed with the special. If you’re not sold on Ralphie May, I would suggest getting Just Correct or Austin-Tatious first and this CD/DVD combination second, depending on how much you like the first two DVDs. That said, one thing the special will do, is get May a commercial for the company that makes the Tivo device.
Craig Fergeson: A Wee Bit O' Revolution
 It’s hard not to like Ferguson with his sincere pride in becoming a new citizen of the United States. And through his special, I looked a lot for reasons to give him an above average review just for being that likeable guy. But, in the end, there just weren’t enough of them. Now, the special is better than you’d expect for an actor turned comedian on his first one-hour stand-up special. There’s a natural, conversational tone here. And, Ferguson does very well describing his own culture and its affect on his American life. There’s just never a lot of punch to his words. His opening bit about how his father will mocks him and says, “You’ll never make it to the Wilbur theatre, wastes far too much time when Ferguson could simply launch into the more interesting and honest material about himself and his family growing up.
The special gets more interesting when Ferguson starts talking about having to be overly American and compares himself to religious people who just converted and act overly Catholic to prove how committed they are to their new faith. What’s most interesting about that is that it’s a very unique take on the whole immigration debate, and Ferguson manages to add his point of view in a way that won’t piss anyone off. But that’s part of the problem: most of the material is chuckle-funny while making the audience say out-loud, “That was kind of safe.” Some of the better material involves what happens when his mother tells Ferguson that if he eats another banana, he’ll turn into one. I guess what’s so funny about the bit is somehow, despite the fact that most people would say, “Come on mom, you’re exaggerating,” Ferguson is very convincing that that he was naïve enough to believe he will turn into a giant, yellow fruit.
I also really enjoyed the bits about Sean Connery and how he can half-ass his way through any acting assignment and yet, he is still thought of as brilliant because he’s Sean Connery.
“Would you like to rehearse?”
“Sweetheart, I’m Sean Connery and you’re lucky I’m even in this piece of crap.”
I’m paraphrasing, but, then again, I’m sure Ferguson was too. However, after that the special seriously falls apart. Somehow, I can’t visualize it when you make fun of your home country by saying, “Damp was a color.” Moreover, making fun of the flavor of the food in England is a little overdone. I know, comics who never visit the place are doing the jokes. When my grandmother fed me British food, she’s from England, I never took the subject on because I could tell that everyone was already talking about it from the taste. And, making fun of Scotty’s Scottish accent seemed just a little petty, and will sound sacrilegious to the more serious Star Trek fans. Overall, the Ferguson’s special is good for his first time out. But if he was a more seasoned stand-up comic, this review would have been a lot harsher.
Dave Chappelle: Killing Them Softly
Dave Chappelle, has an interesting history. His complete break down while taping his show and his inability to get along with the female lead is why the third season never came to pass. Killin' Them Softly was taped at the Lincoln Theatre in Washington D.C. Most of the material centers around being a black man in America. It's always good to have a white friend because you need someone to talk to the cops. Eugene you got this one? Some of that material is predictable, like how white people talk to cops when black people would never get away with it. Some of it's brilliant, like the police who arrest him after calling 911 when they get to his house because they assume the black man must be the robber. But it's the tags that make the material believable. "Look this fool put up pictures of his entire family after he broke in. Let's sprinkle some crack Cocaine on his and go."
Most of the material was the kind you giggle at if you're in a good mood, not the kind that you laugh at when you're feeling in different. "I can't call 911. They tapes those calls. I'd make a fool of myself when they played that tape the next day. What if I can't explain the way I acted. Hello 911. There coming to get me. Oh, I just shit myself." That was one of the rare occasions that I laughed at the phrase, "I just shit myself." But then again, I was laughing at the arrogance it takes to care more about how you look the next day than your own safety.
Chappelle's follow up material is okay. When he talks about driving through the projects the exaggerations are so over-the-line that sometimes good material becomes cartoonish. "I knew I was in the projects because there was a baby, alone on a street corner, and it didn't even look scared. I wanted to help, so I rolled down the window and said, Baby, go home. He said, hey, leave me alone, I'm selling weed." It's a little funny, it's also a little too much. The material on a crack addict in the White House, yes he's referring to George W. Bush, is a little low brow for my taste. And the material about Bill Clinton is a little predictable. But then that's the entire special. It's occasionally funny. It's occasionally predictable and most of the time, half way inbetween the two.
Kyle Cease: Weirder, Blacker, DimplerI think Kyle Cease may have set himself up for disappointment by making sure his name for his special sounds so much like a parody of the name of the Chris Rock HBO special Bigger, Blacker. There’s nothing sacrilegious about making fun of Chris Rock, but it does really raise the expectations. And if that wasn’t the intention, you should be a little more careful when choosing titles that may remind comedy listeners of other specials that came before yours. The bottom line is that when the name of your special brings images of Chris Rock’s best stand-up into my mind, you’ve created huge expectations of yourself.
That’s why starting out slow really damages the special. Cease spends far too much time being nostalgic about how he first came to the theatre he’s playing now to watch Ellen DeGeneres with his dad. That opening bit becomes an act parody out on forgetfulness, because it might not have been that theatre. As a matter of fact, it might not have even been his dad. It was cute for the first few minutes, but after about five minutes later, I just wanted to hear the damn act. Now, I know Cease is an exceptionally talented comic. When Rob ran San Genarro in Culver City, Cease was the best headliner he and Joe ever booked. Every line was on and his material was very tight. So, I’m disappointed to say that this special didn’t live up to my expectations.
Some of the better material from that San Gennaro show, showed up for his special. I remember him doing a bit about made up words in Scrabble. “Quizlix is a word, look it up asshole.” You have to hear the whole bit in context to understand just how brilliant it is. Most of the material is good, but not over the-top funny. More importantly, some of it is way too dated. The Skeletor references should have come out of the act after 1989. One thing Cease does well is handle the heckler who shows up for his first special by tying her back to his material. “Let me guess, you have Juicy on your butt.” That said, the fact that you would have a heckler at a Comedy Central special kind of balances that talent out.
Throughout the special, Cease comes off as somewhere in between Jim Carrey and Dane Cook. He’s a little less physical than either one, but on certain levels, he’s almost as energetic with his delivery and how far he takes each joke. Based on the special, I believe that Cease’s original influence in comedy was Ellen DeGeneres, because her stream of conscious style of comedy dominates Cease’s material for the hour that he’s on the stage. And some material when he talks about God creating the Heavens and the Earth sounds a lot like a Hybrid of Ellen’s famous letter to god and her infamous joke: “At first there was nothing. And then God said, let there be light. And still there was nothing, but by God you could see it.” This isn’t a bad special. But it’s not Kyle Cease at his best either.
Aisha Tyler: Live From The Fillmore My impression of Aisha Tyler has almost always been this girl is unthreateningly average. She’s pretty. She’s in good shape; and, she’s six feet tall. And for some people, including a few professional reviewers, that seems to give an extra star to their review. Live at the Fillmore was taped in Tyler’s hometown of San Francisco. The special opens up with a very well produced rap, most likely entitled Like a White Girl. Peppered with clichés like, there’s no wiggle when I walk, there’s no shake with these fries and if you live in LA you need to ask yourself if you have a friend that’s gay: the opening number is also a little bit redundant and boring. I was also immediately turned off by material that was clearly reincarnations of old Internet jokes. “If God wanted us to be vegetarians, why did he make meat taste so good?”
Some of Tyler’s better material centered on sex: “My boyfriend doesn’t believe in spanking. So I agreed when we had kids that I wouldn’t spank them. But now I don’t spank him either. I just make him sit in the corner and think of what he’s done.” Some of that sexual material is also a little too simplistic like there are no homemade gifts in relationships. “Every kiss begins with K jackass,” Tyler quips. The problem is that most of these jokes are almost entirely sold on her personality. An attractive girl can get away with telling off a guy like that. Give that same line to a different female comic and half the audience would be saying, “What a jerk!” The material underneath her delivery is consistently rather weak. Additionally, some of the material on MySpace, Facebook and Halo is a little too trivial for my taste. One-liners like they should call MySpace, CrackSpace just doesn’t cut it for me.
Okay, some of the parallels she draws between MySpace and Internet porn are interesting. I appreciated the observation that unlike MySpace you can’t unfriend porn. If you close the window it pops right back up and asks, “Are you sure?” But then when she starts to have that same porn site call her on her cellphone like a stalker, the material gets a little cartoonish. Usually, that only works if the material also started out that way. In Tyler’s case, it doesn’t so when she creates an exaggeration like that, and passes it off as real, the material starts to feel fake. As a result, Live From The Fillmore is in the end, never more than average. It’s never really compelling and there are some serious consistency problems from the beginning to the end of the set. Of course, if you look at Tyler and are thinking, God I wish I could come home to that, you’ll forgive her for it. But then again, if that’s the case, you also didn’t buy the DVD for the jokes.
Kevin Hart: I'm A Grown Little Man
This is one of those specials you never really feel. Hart starts out talking about getting into argument with his daughter and how the phrase, "Goo, goo, gaa, gaa," is really her giving him shit. His son apparently has a problem holding his head still. And it's a little funny when he acts it out the first time. After the fifth, it starts to get a little old. The material about women wanting men to protect them even if it means getting killed has been done by every other comic to death. So has the angle, I'm just gonna hide and let the bitch die. There's a few clever lines like, "I'll make a better witness if I don't have a black eye." But the material that sets the tag up is almost always forgetable.
The material about rappers needing a deep voice is probably the best material on the special. But it's over about two minutes after Hart starts into it. Then when he gets into how singers can open and close their hands instead of singing anything to get applause, I heard 1000 open mics comics scream, "Hey that's my bit," at once. The material about using the leg machine at the gym to work his arms, was a little half and half. Half of it was funny. The other half was sick, and the kind of sick that you, as the listener, can almost feel the burning sensation. When he started talking about Phobias and the only phobias he could come up with were alligators and gorrillas, I began thinking, this is just sad. This is not Hart's best special, I would skip it and wait for the sequel.Steve Byrne: Happy Hour
Happy Hour didn’t leave me happy. If I ever get any hour special, I will never open with, “Thanks for coming out. Give yourself a round of applause.” That sounds unprofessional at an open mic. At your first live special, it’s just plain sad. Moreover, when your opening bit is: “I could never be a magician because the job’s too gay,” and the only redeeming part of the bit is you look a little funny when you act out gayness, I loose faith that the special is going anywhere special from here. But then, when change subjects eight times in ten minutes and you add in cliché phrases like: the airlines play Jedi Mind tricks when they loose your baggage, “Sir these aren’t your bags,” I’ve usually give up. Wait it gets better. Then we get a lecture on how upscale restaurants always have lousy service and pretty waitresses while Dennys has excellent services but the waitresses are so ugly they scare off Randal Flagg in the Stand. I’m throwing the literature reference in now, just because I feel like I’m loosing IQ points by writing this review.
Byrne’s continues on to the hierarchy of who girls will sleep with at a rock concert. Let me save you the time. Lead singer. Guitar player. Bass player and the keyboard player screws the comic who opens the show. It’s been done a hundred times, and I’m not saying that because I’ve been both people at the same time. In fact, nearly the entire special could be used as a lesson on overdone topics in comedy. Now, I’m am not suggesting there are topics comics should avoid. But when you take on topics that everyone and their grandmother does, do something to make those topics interesting and original. Byrne does not do that here. And when he talks about people with big heads and little cell phones, the image it conjures up isn’t funny; it’s sad that he couldn’t come up with something better to talk about for the next five minutes of the show.
Byrne’s material is clean for the most part. And, it wouldn’t be as bad twenty years ago, when stand-up comedy was fresher than it is now. If you don’t watch a lot of comedy, Happy Hour might impress you. On the other hand, if you’ve seen as much as I have set ups like, “My dad enlisted and went to Vietnam and met an Asian girl and married her. Then my brother enlisted. He also went to Vietnam, took home a Vietnamese girl and got married. Now, I’ll never enlist. It’s not that I’m afraid of going to war, I just don’t want to get married.” Set ups like this sound so contrived and so obvious that I wish I could fast forward live TV. You see, comics need to be magicians with their words. The set up is the presentation. The punchline is the slight of hand the audience can’t explain and doesn’t expect coming. But I imagine, Byrne feels if he did that, someone might label him as a little too gay.
Margret Cho: Beautiful
 I realize those who like Margret Cho really love her. And it pains me to give a negative review to the one special taped in Long Beach. That said, when the ad for the show says, this will explore our unrealistic standards of feminine beauty, and that has nothing to do with the special, I get a little annoyed. Before the special, in an interview Cho asserts that she likes to mix high brow, low brow, politics, sex jokes. Fuck Sara Palin is not high brow. Neither is the fact that you hate her but want to eat her pussy from behind.
I am not offended at all by dirty comedy. But it takes a special comdeian to do it right. It starts to annoy me when I see the jokes coming at me from a mile away. McCain was a good solider but he was captured, heard that from a dozen other comics. And that was one of the better lines, which also had nothing to do with unrealistic standards of femine beauty. You got the G-spot shot because if your Asian you're doing extra credit. Brilliant, mixing Asians with studying hard and sex. I also didn't know that anyone on project runway tended to act the slightest bit gay. Thanks for informing me, because I live in a cave. I also loved hearing your asshole puckers up whenever the meaner one enters the room. Nice visual about unrealistic standards of feminie beauty.
Throughout the special, Cho half deliverselivers her own material. There is no passion in her own work. The subject matter is all over tangents that have nothing to do with what the special is supposed to be about. And when she claims that she does high brow, low brow, high brow, low brow, it's pretty much all low brow. I watched 15 specials yesterday to write these reviews, Margret Cho Beautiful is the only one I couldn't finish. With fifteen minutes remaining I fell asleep knowing nothing could redeem what I had seen so far. And one and a half stars is generous as far as I'm concerned.
Stay tuned for the reviews.
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Thursday, July 09, 2009
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http://www.classifieds.myspace.com/bounce_redir/?l...If you know anyone who would be interested, please pass this on.
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Saturday, July 04, 2009
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http://www.classifieds.myspace.com/bounce_redir/?l...If you know anyone who would be interested, please pass this on.
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Friday, July 03, 2009
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Category: Writing and Poetry
Random One Liners Again.. * Is it wrong to ask Congress to impose a cap in trade program on your wife in bed? * How is this free checking if the money is coming out of my account? * Turns out the naked truth and the ugly truth were one and the same.. * Aren't denial, grief, anger, bargaining and acceptance the five stages of a relationship? * After putting the smoke detector in our bedroom I decided you aren't as hot as I thought you were when we first met. * Who needs artificial sweeteners when I have you? * You'll need to take down the, "My kid is an honor student," bumper sticker down. It's hurting my kid's self esteem. * I
should have known he had a domestic violence, a drinking problem and
needed male enhancement surgery when I asked what his favorite food was
and he answered, "Beer, battered shrimp."
I wanted to
write a book on how to attract women but I couldn't stretch make a lot
of money and act like an ass into more than 800 words.
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Friday, July 03, 2009
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Category: Jobs, Work, Careers
1. A picture's worth a thousand words. Whenever I look at one the majority of those words say, "Shit happens in color." 2. This ink blot looks like my mother and I was a test tube baby. 3. My life goal is to find out whether Tide or Cheer is better at getting blood out of a bow tie. 4. I really don't see why it's wrong to attack the royal guard with a bean bag chair. 5. Ethics is a crutch for those of us who can't afford good lawyers. 6. So I was selling tickets for an ultimate fight between my superiority and my inferiority complex on Pay per View. 7. Turns out Victoria's Secret was that she got a restraining order against me last week. 8. Is it odd to ask the pianist to play, "There coming to take me away," at your wedding?
Insanity
is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different
results. That's why I stopped doing my husband last week.
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Wednesday, July 01, 2009
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Category: Life
Signs You Shouldn't Have Another Credit Card1. When someone asks, "What's in your wallet," you reply, "Crushed dreams." 2. Not only are you paying your Master Card bill with a Visa, but you also stole someone's identity to do it. 3. American Express recommends that you leave home without it. 4. You've
been rejected for a secure card because the bank believes using your
own money in equal amounts to an imaginary credit line secured by your
own funds is a bad risk. 5. And then they demand the toaster oven back for wasting their time. 6. The last person who tried to steal your identity tried to off himself for the frustration he created in his own life. 7. At this point even paying the minimum requires selling blood twice a week.
8. When your kids ask what you're leaving them in your will you reply, "A challenge."
If you want children dear that's fine. Just never tell me who the real father is.
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Tuesday, June 30, 2009
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Category: Jobs, Work, Careers
If There's Nothing To Do At Work
1. Get a coworkers car keys by pretending their remodeling the parking lot and then move them into the boss's space.
2. Start an illegal betting pool on which temp your immediate supervisor will knock up next.
3. Put
a memo in everyone's mailbox that cigarette breaks are mandatory,
condoms are available in the company bathroom and the sexual harassment
policy has been repealed.
4. Bring a whip to work. When asked why say, "Our boss is looking for new ways to motivate us."
5. Start a rumor that the next years company cars will have a bike chain and a kick stand.
6. When your boss asks why you were late reply, "Our carpool is so inclusive it takes your competitors to work too."
7. Tell the new temp the boss has Turrets and he prefers if his workers swear like a sailor so he doesn't feel so alone.
8. Try to convince any new employee that your job site was the inspiration for the plot line to the film Nine to Five.
I understand you don't trust me. But, before you dust that for finger prints, you will need to buy me dinner first.
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Tuesday, June 30, 2009
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Category: Web, HTML, Tech
Signs You're Addicted To Twitter
1. All your conversations involve 140 characters or less.
2. The
Petshop Boys threaten to beat the crap out of you for repeatedly
requesting Rockin' Robin in tongues at one of their concerts.
3. You only listen to people who are following if you're brushing your teeth with Aquafresh or Crest.
4. You're
following 98 people you've never heard of before in the hopes they'll
care what time you woke up this morning and what time you'll go to bed.
5. After
you heard your parakeet tweet you threatened to take away Polly's
crackers and wring its feathered neck if it ever cut in on your turf
again.
6. You know what Randal Flag is doing right now.
7. You've
prepared a press release for a bowel movement. And then you edited it,
because you couldn't describe it in a sentence or less.
8. You're
more familiar with text message vernacular than a teenage girl with an
iPhone, a degree in short hand and a crush on a boy.
When I said a little dab will do me, I wasn't talking about sex.
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Tuesday, June 30, 2009
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Category: Romance and Relationships
Bad Opening Lines On A First Date 1. I met my therapist at a Star Trek convention.
2. He's not allowed to prescribe heavy drugs until after the wrongful death suit wraps up.
3. Those negative stereotypes of the inbred crazies you meet on the net were based on my unauthorized autobiography.
4. And then Chef Ramsey kicks me out of Hell's Kitchen for suggesting eleven creative new ways of cooking spam.
5. When I die I want to be buried under the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse at Disneyland.
6. Have one psychotic breakdown on It's A Small World, and suddenly everyone thinks you have issues.
7. I keep getting text messages that read 666; what do you think they mean?
8. Does it make you bipolar to watch the Godfather and Marry Poppins at the same time?
When I said on a scale of one to ten, you were a ten, I put the decimal point in the wrong place.
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Wednesday, June 17, 2009
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http://www.classifieds.myspace.com/bounce_redir/?l...If you know anyone who would be interested, please pass this on.
Price Reduced
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