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Kate Berlant's experimental comedy is the best thing since oh God I'm melting | John Wenzel

Kate Berlant popped onto my radar when Denver comedy troupe The Grawlix flew her in for their monthly showcase, but it wasn’t until I saw her at last year’s inaugural High Plains Comedy Festival that I understood why The New York Times, Playboy, L.A. Magazine and others have been freaking out over her.

Berlant’s comedy is singular in the best and most confounding possible way. Watching her largely improvised sets is like watching a delusional, hilariously pretentious theater instructor wax poetic after dropping acid, but also a bit like listening to a business jargon-spouting New Age guru.

In other words, calling her inscrutable persona “weird” is like saying Andy Kaufman was KIND OF into toying with the conventions of comedy. And while it’s easy to see her a natural extension of Kaufman’s theatrical meta-humor, Berlant is increasingly being embraced by non-festival, non-comedy-nerd crowds, which hints at the broadening definition of stand-up as much as its audience.

In honor of her return to Denver’s Oriental Theater on Friday, Jan. 31 for Sexpot Comedy’s Ice Queens of Comedy show — which she’ll co-headline with L.A. dynamo Beth Stelling, with opening sets from Denver’s Jordan Doll and Troy Walker — I caught up with the 26-year-old L.A. native to talk stand-up acceptance, truth in fiction, surreal experiences, and why her comedy isn’t actually that weird at all.

I’ve never seen anything quite like your stand-up, which comedy fans seem to warm up to pretty quickly, but which could be a harder sell for your stereotypical audience at a strip-mall club. Are you ever worried people won’t get it?

Fundamentally, no. Sure, I get nervous before every show and it always feels like, “Oh wow, I want to connect. How am I going to connect?” But just from doing it more and more, it becomes more possible too. You know? It still feels mystical. Stand-up is insane. Sometimes when you do it a lot you forget that and disassociate from how crazy it is, how inherently artificial it is, and how inherently scary it is, even though it doesn’t so much feel that way to me anymore.

Have you ever noticed yourself adjusting your material to fit a certain crowd or venue?

I actually realized very recently that I don’t. I went on tour opening for Father John Misty, doing like 25 cities, and I afterward I realized that I really don’t adjust my material at all depending on where I am. Which I think is classically considered impossible for a professional stand-up. A pro would adjust their material. But I feel really lucky because two years ago I had some shows Wilmington, N.C. and I remember being really nervous, like “Oh GOD!” But it went so well.

Was that your epiphany moment that this is the right path for you?

I actually had this moment a few years ago, maybe in 2009, where I felt like, “Oh fuck, I’m going to have to just go into performance art. I’m going to have to apply for grants and I’m going to go about it through that world.” But I always identified as a stand-up and felt like a comedian. And I feel lucky because I’ve never been forced to feel like what I was doing didn’t belong in comedy. So there was a brief moment where I had a panic. I wasn’t performing as much after that because I had this anxiety that I couldn’t do what I wanted. So yeah, it was powerful for me to then feel like, “Oh, this IS comedy.” Not that people don’t think it is, but I realized I can do this in more traditional zones.

What was your style like when you started?

I did stand-up for the first time when I was 17, and since then I’ve been obsessed with it. But I was performing once a week, so not all the time. So maybe a safe number is to say I’ve been doing it for four years intensely. I started with this really hyper-constructed act where every word was planned. Lots of one-liners. I was still very methodical. The jokes were still strange or starting to play with abstraction a little bit.

Did you ever record your sets and watch them?

Yes, but I was very appalled. I still physically cannot bring myself to watch myself. I really can’t do it. I think in some ways it hurts me, but other times I don’t think so. Even if magically someone was filming a night where I thought I had a great time, I could look back and watch it and think it’s the most depressing thing. It loses all of its magic. I hate watching myself, but watching footage of myself at 18 doing stand-up once a week, it’s like watching this full-blown Eugene Mirman impression. It was exactly his intonation, because when I got into stand-up I was really obsessed with [Mirman’s former NYC showcase] Invite Them Up. I memorized every word of the album.

Have you ever gotten an openly hostile response from an audience?

I did Zanies in Nashville and that was a time when I looked out into the audience and just saw like 45-year-old men with their faces mangled with gin blossoms looking at me kind of confused.

A lot of people, including me, have described your comedy as experimental. Do you ever take issue with that?

It’s more of a thing of not wanting to talk about it, like not wanting to see how the sausage is made. It’s potentially beside the point. I love critical language and I love talking about ideas and about what things do, but it’s always really embarrassing or grotesque somehow to describe what you do. It’s always hard, and because illegibility is exciting to me, or confusion, it makes it even harder.

Do you think audiences are friendlier to your act now than they would have been during the comedy boom of the 1980s, for example?

[Long pause] Sorry, I’m just picturing myself doing comedy in the 1980s. [Laughs] I think so. And I think it’s the internet. That’s the thing I think my comedy’s about, which could be skewered because of the type of statement that is, but it is. The way information becomes moved and people attach themselves to certain ideas and then discard them indiscriminately, like it doesn’t even matter. Although you can feel this momentary conviction. Just the aesthetic of conversation online and trying on different personas and failing to really communicate but wanting to. I think in that way it may be more friendly because maybe people are more familiar with what my stuff feels like.

Do you feel connected to any particular tradition in stand-up? I’ve seen you compared to Andy Kaufman, even though that’s a sort of reductive and easy thing to throw out there.

I feel totally connected. In no way do I feel outside of tradition. I guess the Kaufman thing is fair because my comedy is “weird.” But the word “weird” is so… I don’t know. Just the way we scoff at people who are like, “Yeah, it’s weird. Things are WEIRD.” I think if you’re doing anything that even just slightly resists or feels a little different than the usual then [Kaufman] is automatically brought up. I LOVE Andy Kaufman and would be flattered to be put in any proximity to him. But in terms of what I do, it’s just comedy.

How improvisational is your set? I’ve heard you never do the same set twice, Reggie Watts-style, but I imagine you’ve got some favorite phrases and bits.

It’s really night to night. For example, the other night I did like 20 minutes and I really just didn’t want to say anything I’d said before, and it felt good. It felt scary in a certain way to just completely go with that. The goal is always to abandon the plan. You know where things become exciting when you do that. But being on uneven landscape and having to react to it, it’s hard. It’s scary to do that. The night before I did the 20-mintue show, I had this nightmare that I was doing an hour or something, and I just completely bombed. I just couldn’t do anything. It was a classic anxiety dream. So the next night I said some of the things I said on stage on in the dream where I was bombing, where I was facing this wall of people and no one was making a sound and I was reacting to them.

That’s pretty surreal, to take a dream about bombing and make the material in that dream into a real set.

Exactly. I was like, “Oh, I GET IT.” I’m really trying to train myself to just really do what Reggie does, what Rory (Scovel) does—that kind of spontaneous aesthetic, that invented narrative that’s so exciting to watch. That’s why stand-up is live, why it doesn’t just feel like watching television. I love that and I love those nights. Of course I have language, I have my ideas of what I’m thinking about and my mood. With improvising, it’s so much about your mood and how you feel. And obviously, even if you’re not improvising and it’s completely scripted it’s still totally your body up there. But like I said, it’s really night to night. I absolutely repeat things. I have my favorite things. That’s how I write: onstage. I have a highly fragmented notebook, like little highlighted words that trigger little things for me.

The persona is so flawless and inscrutable. Do people ever approach you thinking that’s who you really are?

What I get a lot is, “You’re CRAZY,” or “You’re on acid,” or “Are you high?" Sometimes maybe people don’t know how to talk to me? But that’s not always true. I feel, all the time, so lucky and encouraged by people who react and like what I do. But yeah, I guuss there might be a confusion about where I am or who I am in it. It’s strange to think about because I don’t know how to reconcile where between nature and artifice I am.

I thought Jason Zinoman’s New York Times piece on you really captured that, and it's hard for me to think about your act lately without referencing that article. And then there’s that famous Oscar Wilde quote about man being least himself when he talks in his own person, but give him a mask and he’ll tell you the truth.

Yeah, I really liked that article. It’s weird: in comedy, for anyone who cares about what they’re doing, there’s this thing of trying to pretend it’s all natural, like you don’t think about it. And in some ways I really DON’T want to think about it. It’s like with critical writing: you don’t want to pull a performance from theory, you want to just do it.

Jargon is the enemy of journalism, and yet it’s sort of your stock in trade, however knowingly. Do you ever bone up on corporate and marketing speak or training manuals or whatever else to refresh that well that you draw from?

No, but I’ve been feeling lately that I really need to read again. Anything. PLEASE read again. I feel truly illiterate and kind of depleted lately, whereas a couple years ago I was reading so much and writing in that language, that sort of impenetrable sensual text that suggests meanings but really doesn’t. You’re like, “Wait, WHAT?” And I loved that and it really fed me, but I haven’t gone back to it. So sometimes I’ll read for like 20 minutes. It’s like art stuff. I like video artists, like Ryan Trecartin. His work really speaks to me.

I can’t let you go without talking about Denver, because this will be the third time the guys from the Grawlix and High Plains crew have flown you out in a little over a year.

Oh my God, Denver has been the most welcoming place. I’ve just met so many truly thoughtful people. It’s so exciting and it feels so good to be accepted by people there. I did The Grawlix at the Bug Theatre (in August 2012) and that was the first time I’d been to Denver. They brought me out for that and then I did the Fine Gentleman’s Club show… what’s that called?

Too Much Fun, their weekly show at the Deer Pile space.

Exactly, and that show was really fun. That was over a year ago, right? I truly have no understanding of time, which has suddenly become a problem. I’m completely unable to map the occurences of my life in any chronology.

This sounds like something you need to explore on stage…

 Yes!

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2014 is the Year Comedy Changed Comedy

We here at Chicken Scratch have had a gangbusters 2014 so far. Steve Heisler took over as co-anchor on Weekend Update, Julie Seabaugh has been writing articles for the Illuminati, Matthew Love earned his Ph.D. in Advanced Loveology, and John Wenzel lives in Colorado.

To say it’s been a whirlwind is an insult to all whirlwinds out there that pale in comparison to OUR whirlwind, and the last thing we want is yet another angry letter from the Congressional Whirlwind Lobby. Needless to say, this is our first post of the year.

But why look backwards? For the first time in Chicken Scratch’s vaunted history, we have joined forces to bring you a glimpse of the future—what comedy might look like in the year 2014 if we had our druthers and comedy kept it saucy:

STEVE HEISLER

1) Less outcry demanding comedians apologize for things.

Kudos to the awesome Natasha Leggero for having the courage to stand her ground and refuse to apologize for a joke she made on New Year’s Eve. It’s certainly nothing new to find a comic who is unwavering and unabashed with his or her opinions, but surprisingly 2013 became the year everyone and their mother proclaimed themselves the Comedy Police. Whether it was outrage over The Onion’s Oscar’s tweet, Daniel Tosh’s rape “joke” or Joan Rivers doin’ her thing, the op-ed Internet echo chamber couldn’t wait to jump in with their opinion of why so-and-so was a horrible person.

Now, I’m not here to say that people don’t have a right to feel however they feel when they listen to a comedian. I mean, you’re obviously not a psychopath. You will have feelings. Feelings are nice to feel. But I don’t like the implication that a public apology is a mandate. It deemphasizes the entirety of what a comedian has to say and places a line or two completely out of the context inherent with the bit, the evening, the mood—pretty much every single facet of how most people heard the joke. This is also not carte blanche to make lazy jokes at the expense of others.

The Daniel Tosh issue is problematic not because he spoke about rape or was heckled (the two sides as best as I can tell), but because he did not put much thought into his response. He was failing at doing what stand-ups are best at: using humor as a gateway into discussing loaded topics. Our culture forgives a lot if it’s funny, and even though humor has a monstrously high degree of variance, we still can’t shake our human nature to empathize with things that make us laugh. Just look at the sheer number of posts that went up after the Tosh thing that were called some variation of, “X number of rape jokes that are actually funny.” As if the problem was CONSENSUS.

I’m ready to stop talking about the topic itself, and more about the role of a comedian and the fact that jokes come from a perspective that has value even if you don’t agree with it. Natasha Leggero’s letter started the year off on the right foot.

2) That’s all I got for now.

JULIE SEABAUGH

The increasing number of annual comedy festivals Exploding? Certainly. Worth attending? For the most part, definitely. And with performers like Tenacious D on down the ladder heading up events of their own, the vibes tend to be less corporate cash cow-y, more community spirit-ed.

Kyle Kinane’s next album/special Word on the street is dude’s about to record a new release (his third, following 2010’s Death of the Party and 2012’s Whiskey Icarus). If his headlining set earlier this month at the Riot L.A. Festival was any indication, it’ll be another monster (and may or may not be a supernatural one-man show titled Ghost Roommate. [Signs point to "not."])

Tig Notaro may have been beaten out by Kathy Griffin for last night’s Best Comedy Album, but her Grammy nomination proved not only can a raw, groundbreaking stand-up release receive acclaim outside of comedy circles, but the divide between “alternative” and “mainstream” continues to diminish. So that. I look forward to more of that.

MATTHEW LOVE

The next step in podcasts

Like a mic or a Twitter account, podcasts are a basic template through which a comic’s energies flow. When podcasting was in its infancy, the idea of putting earbuds in to hear a two-hour conversation with a favorite stand-up or showbiz personality was a novelty; we’d never heard Zach Galifianakis or Chris Rock in such a revealing and intimate space, and for so long. The ability to download and savor these conversations, all but whispered into our ears, seemed unbelievable—not to mention free!

Somewhere along the way, nearly every comic reaching for the brass ring (that had become seemingly much harder to reach) or seeking a promotional tool got a podcast. From there, the same 40 or 50 people moved between podcasts in different combinations on different weeks. Some of these shows have had a gimmick to keep them afloat, others are just funny people talking. At this point, new podcasters have probably figured out that just building it does not mean that listeners will come. On the receiving end, it’s fair to say that a performer just sitting down and talking to their friends will not always produce a quality talk show.

2013 may have been the year the market hit its saturation point; 2014, I hope, will be the year those who gave up on a podcast last year will find the next level to their output. Full-fledged radio shows, like Welcome to Night Vale or Come to Papa, show what a nice conceit, a well-wrought script and great performances can do. Kurt Braunohler’s The K Ohle has multiple formats, and while they don’t all succeed, the restlessness and creativity of the show keeps listeners on their toes. There are ears ready to hear something new, always. And persistence and originality will out. So get to it.

Fans, support your champion

There are a lot of New Yorkers, or former New Yorkers, getting their due on cable at the moment. Comedy Central alone saw Nick Kroll and Amy Schumer take off last year; if the excellence of the first two episodes of Broad City are any indication, Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer will see their stars rise this year. Which leaves New York comedy poster child Chris Gethard. Comedy Central is producing the pilot for his erstwhile cable access show to be filmed at the end of this month.

Best case scenario: The Chris Gethard Show goes off like gangbusters, with all of its heart and strangeness in tact. Worst case scenario: it doesn’t. Either way, Gethard’s fans, and the community he has spent years building, will be behind him. Though it may be occasionally embarrassing to him (as seemed apparent when he talked to Chicken Scratch contributor Elise Czajkowski), Gethard’s sensitivity, his generosity of spirit and his genuine vulnerability make him an inspiration. He is someone who takes care of those in need, so in turn, there are lots of people in the comedy community (or just fringe characters at-large) who want to make sure he is taken care of. Hell, even networks feel this way about him—IFC made up the “Adopt-a-Comic” program for him.

If all goes well, Gethard’s particular brand of earnest freakiness brings him greater acclaim on a national level; imagine, a scary and awkward public access show gathering freaks from around the nation under one umbrella! Right now, the network has Gethard’s back… but as Gethard can tell you, TV is a fickle bitch. With eyes on the prize, the Gethard-loving community should agree that, even if the show doesn’t work out on Comedy Central, it would be in their best interest to follow IFC’s example and help him do what he does best. To anyone who has ever thought about him as a confidante or a counselor, a rabble-rousing proxy or a sympathetic champion of the underdog: keep the man in the back of your head and get ready to throw some cash at him… just in case. Miscellaneous other projects to look forward to:

- Poking a Dead Frog, the new interview book from Mike Sacks. Not just because the Scratch's Steve Heisler contributed to it (although that is nice)… the first one was such fun, and really hit me in that comedy-writing nerd spot. Ah, yeah, hit me again.

- Search Party. Is it possible that so many wonderful, slightly underappreciated comedic personalities (T.J. Miller, Jason Mantzoukas, Thomas Middleditch…) could come together in a movie with a good chance at being great?!

- Tooken: Tina Fey’s new series starring Ellie Kemper as a young woman who's escaped from a cult. Kool Aid drunk.

JOHN WENZEL

1) Comedy festivals a'plenty

I saw more live comedy in 2013 than in the previous few years combined, and what I learned from those experience was that it's STILL not enough. Fortunately, small stand-up events seem to be popping up everywhere -- which is good for both live comedy fans and budding comedians. From Denver's inaugural High Plains Comedy Festival to Omaha's Crom Comedy Fest (see pages 26-27 of this SXSWorld piece for more), there were tons of approachable, regional events designed to offer a buffet-style approach to stand-up. But the more established ones, like Montreal's industry behemoth Just for Laughs or Portland's indie-oriented Bridgetown, were also predictably great. And that's not even mentioning comedy at big music fests (SXSW, Coachella), the return of Austin's Moontower Fest, New York, L.A. and Chicago's city-focused fests, and the two or three-day mini-fests in Aspen, Atlanta, San Diego, Grand Rapids, Michigan and elsewhere. Pretty much every month this year is going to have a comedy fest worth visiting.

2) New shows/reasons to live

On the digital side, Comedy Central Studios is readying a series from Kurt Braunohler called Roustabout that may finally make him a (sorta) household name, and I was thrilled to see that Fox's Adult Swim-ish animation block ADHD just bought a pilot from Colorado-bred stand-up Amber Tozer. I'm also waiting with bated breath to see what the next half-dozen scripts from The Grawlix comedy troupe will amount to, since their top-rated Amazon Studios pilot Those Who Can't was passed over for initial pick-up. And of course the pilots/premieres of The Chris Gethard Show, Adult Swim's new Tim and Eric vehicle Bedtime Stories, and the 8-episode stand-up showcase The Meltdown with Jonah and Kumail. Plus 8,000 others that have yet to be announced but will doubtlessly make me wish I had cable or satellite instead of just Netflix.

3) Catching up with old stuff and things

I feel like I raced through the fourth season of everyone's favorite resurrected savior, Arrested Development, so I owe it to my obsession with the first three seasons to bow down to that motherfucker. I have yet to go back and re-watch my favorite (or missed) episodes of Louie, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, Modern Comedian, and other stand-up-centric fare. Then there's Comedy Central's (currently) high-batting average lineup of Inside Amy Schumer, Kroll Show, and Key & Peele that I really should revisit to satisfy my broadcast-TV sketch cravings. And online, how could I forget the L.A. group Women? And anything Rory Scovel-related? And a billion pretty good Funny or Die vids? Jesus, I've got a lot of work to do.

4) More Netflix/Amazon Studios/Jash-type experiments

As I learned while researching a piece about digital comedy channels, the field is set to explode with more new series this year than ever. Competition will inevitably prune away some of the sweet stuff and leave some died-on-the-vine crap, but the overall freedom and weirdness comics are afforded on these online shows is a boon for creativity. I'm looking at you, Above Average, CC:Studios, Yahoo! Screen and a bunch of others. Or I should say I WILL be looking at you, once I can find four seconds to get my shit together and not be distracted by all my shit that's not quite together yet. Bring it, 2014!

[chickenscratchcomedy]

Happy whatever to you and all your filthy animals!

As consummate professionals and heart-warming family types, we have no choice but to take the next couple weeks off and celebrate various religious traditions and alcohol-centered rituals in the bosom of our stunningly attractive families.

We hope you'll join us in hoisting a semi-cold one to Chicken Scratch's first year in existence -- and looking forward to all the funnies and crack-em-ups we have planned for 2014 on our Dick Clark Memorial Chalk Board, which incidentally doubles as our collective day planner and Win, Lose or Draw Thunderdome. In the meantime, our contributors have helpfully listed their favorite comedy contributions to 2013, including Steve Heisler's Chicken Scratch and A.V. Club pieces, John Wenzel's Chicken Scratch roundup, Matthew Love's Time Out New York piece, and Julie Seabaugh's L.A. Weekly list.

[chickenscratchcomedy]

My favorite comedy of 2013 | John Wenzel

A sold-out crowd greeted Reggie Watts' headlining performance on the final night Denver's inaugural High Plains Comedy Festival. Photo by Evan Semon, heyreverb.com.

As our Steve Heisler pointed out yesterday, nobody can consume every comedy album, TV special, Funny or Die sketch, sitcom pilot, and humor book released in a single year.

Nor should they. That would be gross. That, and discernment is fundamental to critical opinion, and when you're getting paid to broadcast it to whatever audience your advertisers are going after, it becomes a meaningless exercise to thumbs-up everything that falls into your warm, velvety lap.

I'm as guilty as anyone else in being more inclined to listen to something on Comedy Central Records (especially if it's someone I already like) than I am Joe Sixpack's Startup Vanity Outlet, which incidentally didn't put out any great comedy albums this year.

But my favorite comedy of 2013 is, like most of ours, cobbled together from things that were marketed to me as well as things I discovered on my own and through friends. Some of the best was through the digital word-of-mouth channels of Facebook and Twitter, where certain people (whose comedic opinions I highly respect) have become reliable fonts of comedy awesomeness. Some was shit I saw on the bus. Literally.

So at the risk of devolving into a rant about the inherent problems of Best-Of lists (because hey! we need another one of those!) or talking in depth about the human feces I saw on the bus, I'll just shut up and list my favorite comedy of 2013.

Albums/specials

1. Kumail Nanjiani, Beta Male

2. Maria Bamford, Ask Me About My New God!

3. (tie) Adam Cayton-Holland, I Don't Know If I Happy and Andrew Orvedahl, Hit the Dick Lights

4. Craig Ferguson, I'm Here to Help

5. Louis C.K., Oh My God

6. Pete Holmes, Nice Try, The Devil

7. Kurt Branohler, How Do I Land?

8. Chris Hardwick, Mandroid

9. Amy Schumer, Mostly Sex Stuff

10. Bill Cosby, Far From Finished

Festival comedy

Joan Rivers, Tig Notaro, John Mulaney, Moshe Kasher, Todd Barry, Aparna Nancherla, Jon Steinberg, Michael Che, Judah Friedlander (Just for Laughs festival, Montreal)

Kate Berlant, Matt Braunger, Kyle Kinane, Andy Peters, The Grawlix, Chris Charpentier, Aaron Urist and others (High Plains Comedy Festival, Denver, Colorado)

Videos

Brent Weinbach's painfully hilarious Gangster Party Line (thanks for the heads up, Ron Funches). "Fuck you and your bone spurs!"

Anything clip having to do with "Publizity" from The Kroll Show

More than half of all Key and Peele sketches (or a surprisingly large percentage for the normally hit-and-miss quality of a network sketch comedy)

Getting Doug With High (Video Podcast Network)

Tim and Eric, Goatee (Jash)

Drunk History

Podcasts

These Things Matter

Whiskey and Cigarettes

My Dining Room Table

The Narrators

Comedy Bang! Bang!

Uhh Yeah Dude

Doug Loves Movies

The Indoor Kids

Never Not Funny

[chickenscratchcomedy]

Best Comedy of 2013: An Annotated Ballot | Steve Heisler

I probably didn’t listen to your album, and I’m incredibly sorry.

Compiling year-end comedy lists is simultaneously the most and least fun thing I do all year. It’s satisfying to be presented with a massive database of releases and whittle it down to just the ones that spoke to me—finding order in chaos. It’s human nature to enjoy making sense of things. Then it comes time to start ranking one album, special or TV series, one above the other, and I start to realize that consensus, even among my own opinions, is going to be impossible.

I watch and listen to a lot of comedy, but it would be disingenuous for myself—or anyone, really—to claim they’ve watched and listened to ALL of the comedy. I’d go so far as to say that even if every single comedy journalist and comedian came together and compared notes, there’d still be some blind spots. There are practical concerns, of course, like the amount of time I might spend consuming comedy versus, you know, showering. Or the fact that geographically I’m limited to shows I can access from the greater New York area or the festivals I’m lucky enough to attend. But the true mitigating factor is how much I love the damn thing.

Every episode of Nathan For You had me giddy with laughter, so of course I had to watch them all and take in every moment of unabashed commitment—like the time Nathan was too scared to skydive that he said he was late for lunch with a friend, then to prove it was absolutely true invited the skydive instructor to lunch with him, then he had to pay a stranger to pretend to be the friend. That show surprised me all the time; I wanted to be surprised a lot.

I guess in theory, for the sake of an encyclopedic year-end list, I could have watched an episode and understood what the show was about, then moved on. I did not want to do that. It was love at first way-too-drawn-out-or-maybe-just-drawn-out-enough gag.

But then the casualties started adding up: I couldn’t get through Aziz Ansari’s Buried Alive. Nor did Kathleen Madigan’s album Again do much for me. It’s certainly a joy to “do all this for work,” but I clearly consumed all of this stuff with purpose. If something didn’t strike me in the first 15 minutes or so, I very much regret to say, I stopped listening or watching. There are also at least 99 percent of the comedy albums released, shows performed and specials taped this year that I missed completely.

That is very much not a source of pride. It was some maligned sense of perceived critical obligation that got me to fire up the things in the first place, and I just couldn’t turn away when I stumbled upon something as odd and brazen as The Arscheerio Paul Show. I’m a comedy fan first, a critic second.

I’m unable to get into a comprehensive-off with any outlet or writer—I can’t compete with anyone as to who watched more Comedy Central specials or attended more Comedy Central special tapings. I don’t WANT to compete with anyone about those measurable things, because I’ll lose. All I can offer is my perspective on things, which is the one thing nobody can truly compete with me against (unless they are my Orphan Black).

I’d hope when reading year-end lists, it’s understood that sifting through 2013’s comedy archives is great fun, but it’s also kind of a chore. By circumstance alone, it requires I let a few hard working comedians down easy, even though I probably didn’t give them a fair shake.

So, having said that, here are some things I loved in 2013:

Nathan For You

Maria Bamford, Ask Me About My New God!

Louis CK, Oh My God

[lots of other non-God things]

The live show I saw in Montreal where John Mulaney DESTROYED

The Arscheerio Paul Show

Burning Love

Bill Cosby, …Far From Finished

@midnight

Kate McKinnon doing anything

See ya in 2014! Or, if you have an album, possibly.

[chickenscratchcomedy]

With Apologies to The Hobbit: The Highs and Lows of Nerd Humor | John Wenzel

The multi-million dollar media blitz heralding the new Hobbit movie has likely made you unbelievably sick of hearing about it, so allow me to take a different path. Namely, one that deflates the movie's violent, Biblical self-importance while at the same time embracing the gentle nuances and details of its beloved source material.

In other words: nerd humor. I’m pretty sure that’s the definition of nerd humor, anyway. And I don’t mean comedy for the general nerd population, or humor for people who are nerds about comedy. I mean comedy that laser-sights a specific target and blasts away at it from point blank range, splattering the source material in a way that only superfans can truly appreciate. I’m talking about the Harvard Lampoon’s classic Bored of the Rings, which was reprinted last year to capitalize on the release of the first of Peter Jackson’s Hobbit adaptations. It was the book's “sort-of-fortieth anniversary" (as press materials called it) and a fine excuse to dust off the adventures of Frito Bugger, Spam Gangree, Moxie and Pepsi Dingleberry. And who could forget the incorrigible Gimlet, son of Groin? That cut-up.

Originally published in 1969 during the height of Tolkien-revival-mania (ramble on, motherfuckers!) Bored of the Rings works because it chooses its targets wisely and rewards people who have a detailed knowledge of the book it parodies. There's the map at the front that lays out realms such as The Land of Knee-Walking Turkeys and The Tiny X-Shaped Forest. There are chapters like "Some Monsters" and "Schlob's Lair and Other Mountain Resorts." And there are sharp lines that nail Tolkien's proclivity toward wordy impenetrability (see what I did there?):

"In the Eastern sky, Velveeta, beloved morning star of the elves and handmaid of the dawn, rose and greeted Noxzema, bringer of the flannel tongue, and clanging on her golden garbage pail, bade him make ready the winged rickshaw of Novocaine, herald of the day."

Arguing over why this is funny is mostly pointless, because it's humor at its most subjective. It's overall silly and light, but as noted, if you're going to commit to reading more than 150 pages of this stuff, it'd better be A) good on its own or B) some kind of reward for having absorbed the excruciating minutiae of Tolkien's vast world. Of course, if something gets popular enough the act of parodying it isn't really nerd humor because EVERYBODY is an expert (see Harry Potter, Breaking Bad, etc.) That's why the Lampoon has also churned out detailed take-downs of The Hobbit (this year's all-new The Wobbit), The Hunger Games (The Hunger Pains) and the Twlight series (Nightlight). They're money-makers, plain and simple. The point at which nerd humor crosses over into general parody is when the object of parody has been absorbed into the pop-culture consciousness and both casual and hardcore fans can understand the joke (see Sesame Street's Cookie Monster spoof Lord of the Crumbs -- or any number of Airplane/Naked Gun-type films). Then again, there's Williams Shakespeare's Star Wars, a Lucasfilm-approved book by Ph.D. writer Ian Doescher. What's more enduringly popular than Star Wars and Shakespeare? And yet the book exhibits an intimidating level of detail in its iambic pentameter re-telling of Episode IV: A New Hope, often referencing Shakespeare in a way that both embraces and pokes fun at either of its foundational subjects (to whit: the Chorus provides haughty sci-fi exposition while characters speak in haths and thou arts and verilys). It's a more sophisticated and less general-audience nerd humor than the Lampoon editions, and it succeeds because of its inherent respect for and knowledge of the subject matter.

Thanks to the interwebs we've got countless other examples of jokes that only nerds will understand, particularly jokes that embrace the potentially embarrassing aspects of whatever computer-language subculture we're in while at the same time giving us a reason to laugh at ourselves. It's cathartic, and furthermore, it's just the way we process the things we love. But some are better than others, so taking down Peter Jackson's Tolkien adaptations because they're too faithful (or not faithful enough) is far less entertaining than getting creative and using Jackson's own work against itself. The Hobbit Meets Heavenly Creatures is a movie I'd pay to see.

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The Rolling Beer Bottle: A Comic's Material and the Immaterial | Matthew Love

My laminate blinds Tig Notaro. From the spiral staircase at the back of the Théatre Sainte-Catherine, a guy calmly, repeatedly says something incomprehensible about feces. A water bottle rolls across the stage. Each of these moments during Notaro’s Boyish Girl Interrupted at JFL this summer led to comic gold; but even if I could find the notes I took about them, these moments—some of the best of the show—would be the hardest to make sense of.

To sit at a stand-up’s show, especially one that’s longer than fifteen or twenty minutes, is to share the air with a comic, to understand more than a little something about the way they think and feel. But as any good player will tell you, a performance is a conversation; energy is passed back and forth from the house to the stage. Primarily, yeah, the comedian talks and the audience listen; but at the same time—even with an absence of hecklers—the audience is ‘talking’. It is quiet, loud, silly or uptight. Someone really likes fart jokes. Whatever it may be. When a comic hears and recognizes something, it does more than get a laugh. It helps to bring everyone into the present.

Unless we’re talking about Jimmy Pardo, tested jokes and bits are the foundation of any act. Good delivery, timing and a point-of-view are necessary, of course; a performer’s confidence and ease grease the wheels. But these ineffable, you-had-to-be-there moments in a set create an irreplaceable quality in a performance that nudges it from good to great. They convince a crowd that—more than just being in a room together—all of them, the comic included, are seeing and hearing the same things. Everyone is sharing an experience. To put it another way: Jokes are great, but quoting them doesn’t prove you shared the same air as Louis C.K.

There is already community inherent in the laugh; audience members agree to let their guard down, and place themselves in the hands of the comic. But there are great rewards in noticing silence or cacophony, in pointing out when a drink drops or a chair scrapes. Consider the improv maxim, “Make your partner look good.” Even if their scene partner is a beginner or a lout, a great improviser can make that person look like a genius and full of wonderful moves. At a stand-up show, the crowd is that noisy, cheerful, stupid, and occasionally belligerent partner; if a comic can make an unintentional sigh or a peculiar, barking laugh seem like exactly what their show needs, the audience laughs. If that comic seamlessly weaves this stray occurrence into the show, revisiting as it suits them, the audience quickly comes to believe in sorcery.

Arguably, taking on some guy’s garbled whisper can be a distraction, and can derail a comic’s set. Grabbing for these magic moments—e.g. doing crowd work—can be something scary and unpredictable. But more and more, I’m convinced that the best comics listen to and respond to the room as a natural extension of what they do. Their ears are trained to pick up on the smallest and strangest shifts in the room’s attitude. And when something interesting happens, they don’t hesitate; they pounce on it. Ultimately, the thing the comic notices can feel akin to the observational germ behind a written joke; when the comedian has thoroughly eked out what was interesting about that cough or that groan, audience members might think, “I wouldn’t have said that but… exactly.”

Though it can be pandering, this connection can be made as the road comic does local material. In its most extreme, this bond can be forged fending off hecklers. As much as I don’t condone needy, misguided hollering, these action-reaction cycles are some of the easiest to understand on paper. For instance, during Bill Burr's big show at the Beacon this fall, a drunken woman aggressively called something out from the balcony a couple of times, but her words got lost fast. “The female voice doesn’t carry,” he told her, “From here, it just sounds like a couple of birds fighting over a french fry.”

Harnessing these moments isn't easy; it takes work to listen and to trust one's gut. But when a comic capitalizes on these ephemeral happenings, it wakes everyone up and helps them remember being at the show later... Even if they can't quite tell their friends what made it so special.

[chickenscratchcomedy]

Taylor Ketchum: The Highest Highs and the Lowest Lows | Julie Seabaugh

Taylor Ketchum co-hosts new biweekly show Hot Crowd, along with Joe Zimmerman and Jono Zalay, Wednesday at Over the Eight in Williamsburg. From college football star to homeless heroin addict to New York standup, his is a compelling story unlike any other in the comedy industry.

“I am from Los Angeles. I don’t tell people this all the time, ‘cause I’m not some kind of Hollywood fuckface, but I was actually in the movie Trainspotting...for about 11 years. I played Division I college football, and then I became a heroin addict, and then I became this. I’m not really sure what’s more tragic in that chain of events, to be honest. It’s kind of a bizarre trajectory for a life to have. It’s like: college glory, getting laid, varsity, letterman’s jacket, things are going well, hepatitis, death, abscesses,  loneliness, ‘Eh, I guess you’re not hurting anybody.’”

I love Los Angeles. My family’s there, all my friends. I went to high school there. But I’ve always wanted to be a New York City comic. I like it here better as a comedian. It’s not always easy here. It’s not always comfortable or fun. But for comedy, it’s the best.

I don’t necessarily tell the whole story because I don’t have time, and not all of it’s funny. The addiction stuff, all you’re going to hear about is the nasty, good, weird stuff about it, not what led up to it. I try to be as honest as possible up there. If I need to edit something and get to the point and not tell the whole thing, then I’ll do that. I don’t make things up. All that addiction stuff is all real. It’s kind of CliffsNoted, but it’s all stuff that actually happened.  

I always liked drugs and partying. But I played football, and it kind of babysat me.  Whenever things were getting too out of control or too hairy, I always had this football thing to be like, “Oh, okay, I should go not be a scumbag now. I’ve got to play football.” I started playing in fourth or fifth grade. It was just what the kids in my neighborhood were doing.  I just moved there, my parents had gotten divorced about two years before. I didn’t have a dad around. They were playing and I was just like, “Oh cool; I’ll try that.” I ended up being pretty good at it.

“If they ever do an E True Hollywood Story about me, it’s going to have to go backwards. It’s going to have to be like, ‘Taylor toiled in obscurity for years as a stand-up comedian before succumbing to the demons of addiction. But with the help of friends and family, he was able to break free of these shackles and go on to achieve greatness as a college athlete. He now resides in suburban Los Angeles. He is an eighth grader. He hopes to one day crawl back into his mother’s womb and shrivel up into nothingness.’”

I didn’t have anyone to answer to. So we played North Carolina State, I got on an airplane, my buddy picked me up, we went to a club in LA, and I started doing coke that instant. That happened for a few years, then I had a meltdown.

I was doing a bunch of mushrooms one day, and a friend invited me over. I go over there, and it was just a bunch of people doing coke. I’m on mushrooms, and then I started doing cocaine. That’s a horrible, horrible, horrible thing to mix. And then I started taking bong hits of Kush. All the sudden, I think I’m dying. I’m hallucinating that my heart is coming out of my chest and doing circles around me. I’m driving with my friend, and I start panicking and freaking out. “I’m dying; something’s going on.” She parked the car, and I laid on the ground. She called 911 and said, “My friend is overdosing. I’m very scared. We need help now.” The 911 operator was like, “Okay, what I want you to do is grab him by the shoulders, look him in the eye, and ask him if this is really happening. I paused and I said, “I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on.”

Eventually things calmed down, she hung up with the operator, and we went back to her house. For the next two and a half years I had this dull pressure-pain in my chest 24 hours a day that never went away. It was all this psychosomatic stuff that I would obsess on, and it would manifest. My brain was tricking itself.

The chest pain was going on, and then it was like, “I have a metallic taste in my mouth. It tastes like blood. Something’s wrong.” I thought I was losing my vision. I had this ingrown hair on my ankle, and it had calloused over so it was this little bump. “What’s that? It’s a tumor!” I had really dry skin on my hands. One day I Googled “AIDS symptoms,” and it said the symptoms of AIDS were dry, flaky skin on hands, metallic taste in mouth, blurred vision, pain in the left side of the abdomen, and purple nodules around the ankles. I was still doing drugs this whole time.

I was back at school, finishing my senior year. I go to the medical center, and I’m wearing my football gear. I have a hoodie on that says “Ohio” and my number on it. I’m crying, telling the doctor that I’m a cocaine addict and I have AIDS. They test me, they tell me to calm the fuck down, and I go home and sleep for six days straight. I go back to get the results. The doctor walks in, and I go, “Shut the fuck up and just tell me I have AIDS. Just fucking say it, you motherfucker!” He goes, “Mr. Ketchum, there’s nothing wrong with you. You need to calm down. You are HIV negative.”

I went home and told my roommates what had been going on. They were like, “Good, that’s great. We were worried about you.” When they all leave to go to class and I’m alone again, the chest pain starts up again, and I’m like, “I have cancer! Something’s wrong!” And then I found heroin.

At first it was the best thing ever. It was amazing. It was awesome. I could have all those problems that I was talking about go away for $5. It starts that way. Then you build up your tolerance. It was $5 for the first month, then it was $15, $50. It takes more and more as time goes on. Eventually I was spending a few hundred dollars a day, every single day.

I was a messenger for ICM. I was a messenger with a suspended license, expired tags, and on heroin. I never got pulled over one time. I had to get rid of the job because I wasn’t making enough money. Through junkie networking, I figured out how to make more money. Shoplifting. And as soon as I figured that out, I was done. I didn’t have another job for three years.

When I first started, I had a little apartment in downtown LA. It was kind of hood, but cool. I moved in with my girlfriend, who I was keeping this a secret from. She had no idea what was going on. We broke up because…she would have worked with me. She wanted me to succeed. But I wasn’t ready to stop doing it. So I had an apartment, a car, a girl, and a job. Then I didn’t have a job. Then I didn’t have a girl. Then I was in another apartment. Then I didn’t have a car. And then it was just a backpack. I didn’t really sleep on the streets, maybe for a week, but because of the shoplifting hustle I would use all that to get little shitty hotels for the night. Steal all day, cop and get well, and get a motel room with a friend. Crash there, and do it all over again.

Pepcid AC, Prilosec, Biosilk hair treatment, Mach3 razors, Oral B electric toothbrushes. We would sell them to these Persian guys in downtown LA. Centrum vitamins; they cost $25 at the Rite Aid. You steal them; you get $7 for them, then they go and sell them somewhere.

“The worst part about being an ex-heroin addict, anytime I tell somebody about it, they automatically want to tell me everything they’re going through. Sometimes their cross is not that legitimate of an issue. I had a girl tell me the other day, ‘Books are my heroin.’ I was like, ‘Really? Well in that case, how many dicks did you have to suck for that copy of -- what is that? -- The Alchemist. I relate! That is a highly-addictive book, and I once did seven months in county jail...for possession of John Grisham’s The Pelican Brief.”

I went to treatment a bunch of times. My dad would call and be like, “You know, son, you need to check into a treatment center.” My whole family knew. My brother was the same story. We were in the same place. By the way, he’s doing great now. He owns a recovery home for drug addicts in LA. He’s saving peoples’ lives. I’m very proud of him.

I’d be tired. My habit would be out of control. So I’d be like, “You’re right. I’m going to go this time.” then I would AWOL after a couple weeks. It never stuck. I could never figure out how to do it. It was bad. I was also shooting coke, and I was losing my mind. I was living in this motel with another girlfriend, and I was losing my shit. I finally reached out for help, and I ended up at this really new-wavey treatment center.

I went to a detox, then I went to that place. It was free, and it was long-term. Whatever you were into, they were super-supportive of it. If you were like, “I’ve always wanted to try kickboxing,” they’d be like, “Cool! Go for it!” It was totally contrary to every other rehab experience I’d ever had, where they’re like, “Shut your fucking mouth! You don’t know shit! Your ego is not your amigo!” This place was like, “What do you want to do, man?”

This guy came downstairs one day, and he was wearing a comedy club tee-shirt. I had always loved comedy, but I never had the courage or the balls or ever knew how to go about that. I was like, “Are you a comic?” He said, “Well, I’m a loser in rehab. But at one time, yes.” He’s like, “Are you a comedian?” I’m like, “Well, I dabble…” It was total bullshit. He was like, “You wanna do an open mic?” “Yeah, man! That’d be great. For sure!”

On the way there, I was like, “I lied to you. I’ve never done this before.” He just started laughing and was like, “Oh, you’ll be fine.” I went up, and I didn’t have any jokes, but there were all these pothead comics. I just razzed them for being pussies with their addictions, and I got a few laughs. Then I just kept doing it. It was 2008. I’ve been doing it ever since.  

That was the time where I actually took to the whole idea of getting better. I finally had something that I wanted to strive toward. I got that bug, and I did well onstage a couple times. I was like, “I wanna keep doing this.” I started working at the worst comedy club in Los Angeles for free when I was a few weeks in, the Ha Ha Café. I knew that everyone there was kind of garbage, so it was okay to be horrible. I didn’t feel a ton of pressure.

You can do comedy as long as you choose. They don’t kick you out. Well, you can get sort of blackballed, but if you want to do it, no matter what, no matter how horrible you are, no matter how old you are, you can participate in some way. Football, eventually people are going to be like, “Beat it.” I don’t want to say “Comedy saved my life,” or whatever, because it’s not therapy. It’s not therapeutic. It won’t make you a better person. It’s one of the most selfish things you can do.

Let me rephrase that: It feels good. There is something cathartic about having these ideas floating around, going somewhere and telling them, and a lot of people laugh at it. Because when people laugh at it, they’re telling you, “It’s okay. We forgive you for that.” So you don’t have to hold things in. If it’s funny, it’s not bad. It can’t be evil if it’s funny. There is something about that that’s beneficial, but if it’s the only thing you’re doing…it’s not a give and take. It’s not equal. You’re onstage; they’re sitting there. It’s not an authentic dialogue where you’re going to get to the bottom of something. All you’re going to do is say your perspective, and the only feedback you’re going to get is if they laugh or not.

I do less addiction-type stuff now. When I first started, I didn’t know how to talk about anything else. it was all that I thought about. Now I have a real life, and not everyone that I know is in rehab. My perspective is getting wider, and I’m getting away from that stuff.

I think a lot of people who start comedy look to these iconic, subversive figures like Bill Hicks and Carlin, and they want to “speak their truuuth.” I used to think like that, but now that kind of talk just makes me roll my eyes. Once you’ve been doing it for awhile, the mystique goes away. I just want to be funny and be original. I don’t want to be the guy who’s just the dark, drug-addict person. I have this background. I shot heroin. I was on the streets for awhile. But I’m a goofball. I’m silly. I’m not a dark person 24 hours a day. But it is part of the deal.  

Photos by Luke Pickerill

[chickenscratchcomedy]

Q&A with The Improv's Budd Friedman | Julie Seabaugh

Epix documentary The Improv: 50 Years Behind the Brick Wall -- featuring Jerry Seinfeld, Jimmy Fallon, Sarah Silverman and more -- debuts tonight at 8 Eastern. Founder Budd Friedman was kind enough to speak with me...for L.A. Weekly, but this being the prime season for leftovers, here are some of his cutting-room thoughts on the film, the chain’s legacy and just who the hell Nerdist is again.

Was there a biggest surprise or greatest hurdle in the process of producing and releasing the documentary?

No real surprises. They did throw a few barbs in my direction, but that’s to be expected. But on the whole it’s a terrifically entertaining show, and we’re very pleased. We can’t wait to get on the air. It’s one thing to see it on my computer, but it’s another thing to see it on my TV.

Well, you know the comedians only kid the ones they love, so…

What was the timeframe of shooting it?

Well, we shot over the course of a couple of...I would say weeks. We shot a few days here and a few days there. We shot in both Los Angeles and New York. I know Bette [Midler] was just finishing up her one-woman show, so she wasn’t in the mood to be interviewed. And Billy [Crystal] was getting ready for his one-man show. Oh, and Robert Klein was out of town, of all people. He was the first big comic act in New York.

What was the New York location?

Where we filmed, just a studio. Our producer set up a beautiful set evoking the Improv as it looks today. Not like it looked in 1963.

Watching, I noticed there were two distinct set-ups, and I was like, “That doesn’t look like the L.A. club.”

No, no. The only thing that was missing was the candy kisses that my partner Mark Lonow used to hand out. But it evoked the mood. I was very happy with that. The reason we couldn’t shoot at the LA Improv is that it’s going through a complete renovation. The showroom is now finished. We’ve added a new restaurant and bar, and it is just coming back into shape now. Hopefully it’s going to open within the month. It’s going to be run by Adam Fleischman, who owns Umami Burger.

What are some of your goals behind the renovations? I know it’s been going on for quite a while.

It has. Dealing with the city, it’s just terrible. But it’s finally coming. Hopefully when I get back I’ll stop there Friday, take a look. Hopefully they’ll show some real good signs of being finished. Hopefully some of the equipment will be installed in the kitchen. It’s sitting there. It’s not hooked up yet. But the goals are we’re setting up a barbecue restaurant that will feature ribs and smoked brisket and Southern-fried chicken and things like that. It will be rustic and charming and delicious. We now have a second bar and lounge. We have two, so we have more space. The original footprint is the same on the restaurant.

A lot of the comics that were interviewed had some great Melrose Improv moments in their mind that they reminisced about, but what were some of your highlight moments from the Melrose Improv?

I’m doing Jimmy Fallon tonight. I just remember him coming in, and he was sitting in the club and about to go on. My wife and I are about to leave, and one of my assistants said, “Stay and see him. He’s a good kid.” And when he finished I said, “Eh, I don’t know.” My wife said, “You should go over and talk to him.” And my wife, Alex, is not one to be put off. And I said, “What you mean, ‘talk to him’? He doesn’t even have an act!” And she wisely said, “He’s got something. Go talk to him.” And so I talked to him and encouraged him, and we started to book him. Next thing I know we’d booked him in our Vegas club, and he had to leave in the middle of the week, announcing he’d got Saturday Night Live and had to be in New York by Friday. It was great to see that happen.

How have you seen the L.A. comedy landscape evolve over the years?

Well, it went from a monopoly with the Comedy Store to a biopoly with the Improv, and now there’s a triumvirate with the Laugh Factory. So there are three good clubs and it’s a good place for comics to come to develop their material. They get the opportunity, and most of us now are certainly willing to allow comics to go from club to club, to break in. The only way a comic’s going to get better is by working out in front of an audience.

What’s your take on some of the smaller, more independent rooms? There’s the back room of Meltdown Comics, Flappers…

To tell you the truth, I haven’t been to Flappers yet, but they’ve been getting some interesting acts in there, I know. What was the other place you mentioned?

Meltdown Comics, the Nerdist back room they have there.

All right, I think I missed that one. Then again, they don’t have a special airing on Epix, do they? You know, it was a tough sell, and finally Epix got behind us. But we did an anniversary show every 5, 10 years. This is our third. We had a 10th and a 40th and now a 50th. None of the other clubs can get anything on the air, but Epix took a chance with us. And we delivered, I must say.

And then finally the one that always comes up: what is your advice for comedians just starting out?

Practice, practice, practice. It sounds like a cliché, and it is, but without practice, without dedication…you heard some story when you saw the show about these guys and what they went through to develop their craft. And it’s a difficult art form for most people to conquer. No doubt about it.

Anything else I missed?

Well, you know, a lot of guys, particularly like Judd Apatow, who was a doorman at the club, and it’s where he met Adam Sandler and [manager] Jimmy Miller. We’re responsible for a few marriages there. And times have changed. There’s no doubt about it. The face of comedy has changed; it’s gotten a little broader and a little more open to language, shall we say. But you can’t just say the f-word and expect to get a laugh. You’ve got to be able to have some wit behind it all. Don’t just go for the easy laugh.

[chickenscratchcomedy]

Am I Stoned, or Is Doug Benson the Future of Comedy? | John Wenzel

Watching Doug Benson smoke pot on his video-podcast Getting Doug With High makes my lungs hurt. Dude barely takes a breath between joints, bowls, and bong rips, encouraging his comedian-actor buddies to puff with him for the entirety of the 50-minute show, but also gleefully toking by himself when they decline.

Few people have the superhuman tolerance of Benson, who is as synonymous with weed these days as he is comedy, and that’s probably for the best. His humor can be rambling and punctuated with awkward moments, and it’s usually more relatable to people who understand pot culture than those who don’t. I wasn’t crazy about either of Benson’s well-meaning but boring stoner documentaries, Super High Me and The Greatest Movie Ever Rolled. And like any comic, some of his live shows fall flat.

But when my non-stoner friends jump at the chance to see him every time he rolls through town, I can’t help but think he’s more than just someone at the right place at the right time, or that he’s simply pandering to an underserved market. His style of humor is fundamentally goofy and open-hearted, and often surprisingly nimble -- or at least as nimble as most non-stoned podcasts out there, which could often benefit from the constant self-awareness that comes with being high (or is it just paranoia, MAN?!)

Simply because Benson is talking about (and smoking) pot all the time doesn’t mean he’s inherently lazy. He’s a podcast champ and social media rock star primarily because he’s a gifted riffer and touring juggernaut, not because he’s hitched his wagon to a drug that’s going increasingly mainstream. He’s easy-going and funny, but harsh when called for, and his taste in movies and other comedians is uniformly great. In other words, he’s a comedian first and stoner second, and the format for his open-ended talk show works in spite of its potential to be a druggy trainwreck.

That said, Benson is truly one of those comics who’s funnier when he’s stoned. Disc 2 of his Smug Life experiment -- in which he recorded one stand-up set while sober and the other while incredibly high -- is better than the first, which is probably as much a function of years of heavy pot smoking as it is him warming up for that night. (Tolerance to marijuana is, arguably, the most benign kind. Imagine a commensurate amount of alcohol being consumed and you’re past Drunk History territory and into the surly, puking, black-out realm that doesn’t exactly make for amusing video). Benson sounds relatively rigid when sober, but after a few puffs he seems to find more organic opportunities for commentary and crowd work.

For Benson it’s more than a marketing hook. Weed sets the tone and provides the structure, or lack thereof, for his comedic endeavors. It erases traditional stage nerves and replaces them with open exploration. He even has a healthy contingent of fans who don’t get high but simply appreciate his intelligent curation of guests and targets. Why? Because outside of L.A. and comedy festival afterparties, few people ever get a chance to see James Adomian, Alia Shawkat, Sarah Silverman, or Anthony Jeselnik try to keep it together while baked out of their minds. It’s charming and low-stakes in the best way. And it’s saved from being the comedic equivalent of jam-band music because it’s funny regardless of the drugs, whereas most jam bands sound excruciatingly self-indulgent when not filtered through at least four layers of mind-altering chemicals.

Take the James Adomian episode: Benson both encourages Adomian’s rapid-fire celebrity impressions (now well-known to Comedy Bang! Bang! fans) and reins Adomian in when he goes long or loses the point, as he can do. It’s like giving a blindfolded, muscle-bound kid a heavy stick then verbally directing his every step while he smashes the fuck out of a piñata. Without the blindfold (or weed) it wouldn’t be as refreshingly vulnerable and weird; without the Benson’s steady direction, it would be a stumbling, open-ended mess minus the satisfying payoff.

To paraphrase something I wrote for The Spit Take earlier this year, it’s hard to imagine anyone describing Benson as visionary, at least outside of a dorm room or Widespread Panic show. But here he is, an aging, slow-boil comedian presiding over the most ubiquitously legal pot culture in history. With fully-legal recreational weed taking root in Colorado on Jan. 1, and more than a dozen states with medical marijuana laws, Benson has accidentally stumbled onto the burning edge of a national trend. My higher-ups at The Denver Post, a paper that has won the Pulitzer Prize the last four years in a row, even hired mainstream journalism’s first-ever dedicated marijuana editor last week, which can only herald the kind of coverage the drug will be getting in coming months and years.

As I said, Benson definitely plays to the stoners. But who doesn’t understand stoner culture these days? It’s not exactly the comedy of Cheech & Chong, who pioneered drug humor and made us all feel like insiders. Nor is it the stuff of Half Baked and countless wannabe college cult films, in which jokes about dudes crashing on your couch tend to pass for “themes.” It’s loopy observational stand-up that takes place against the background of weed, where clouds of smoke provide a different sort of stage curtain.

Benson visits the Denver area several times a year, and whether he’s doing a set at an indie rock venue, a mainstream club like Comedy Works, or a Doug Benson Movie Interruption at Littleton’s Alamo Drafthouse (as he will on Dec. 14 with Lethal Weapon), he sells out every show. Benson’s constant touring has cultivated a potent audience, and he always delivers the buzz for which they’re jonesing.

Whether you like his humor not, Benson has hybridized a winning formula that few comedians have at the moment. And with the Green Tide rising inexorably across the country, his perspectives on the comedy, stoner, and podcast worlds have begun maturing into something surprisingly definitive. Something approaching visionary. However accidental, half-lidded, and bloodshot they may be.

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The Fart Machines in Purgatory Are More Realistic | Steve Heisler

“My friends are getting book deals from Twitter and I'm slow dancing with a robot for a case of free salsa. Everything's just fucking grand.” -- Kyle Kinane, a great Twitter warrior

The future has brought about new and exciting ways by which the worth of a comedian, at least among gatekeepers and decision makers, can be quantified. Podcast subscribers, album downloads, page views and, obviously, Twitter followers have replaced Nielsen ratings or focus groups as the way by which comedic impact is measured. Thank God, hard-working funny people will always get a shot—the existence of 30 Rock and Louie are blindingly obvious examples—but I’m talking about taking a risk on scrappy young upstarts with nothing but a niche to their names. There are now more metrics by which to justify the existence of said niche in the old, data-driven way of “making it,” so not all niches are created equal.

Obviously the best possible scenario is when really talented people with fervent fan bases get their due, like how Comedy Bang Bang transitioned from a joyous, friendship-driven podcast into a surreal take on the talk show format. That happens. But not every single time. Never forget Shit My Dad Says.

So what’s left is for great comics to sit in purgatory as their passion projects are put on hold in favor of taking calculated risks. (I get that Kyle Kinane’s travel pilot might not be for everybody, but at least Comedy Central gave us Adam Devine’s House Party!) Having a few irons in the proverbial not-lit fire seems to be the mark of a working comic nowadays, sitting around in the great, nebulous unknown between Joe Annoyance Theatre Level 1 and Lenny Bruce.

I am beyond thrilled to report that I have figured out HOLLYWOOD, and the secret is to invent a fart machine that sounds much more like an actual fart than what traditional fart machines can produce. Yes, the future is now. This is how I know for sure:

A few years ago, my lit agent and I had a booty-text style of relationship. If she wanted something from me, I’d snap off my Minnesota Timberwolves breakaway pants, throw on an un-ripped T-shirt and do/go and/or call where/what and/or who she wants, even if I had to take the G train. Conversely, if I wanted something from her, I’d get a response a good 20 percent of the time, and usually then it’d be all, “My phone’s being weird so I didn’t see this until now…can we try for another night? ;) ”

I’m hesitant to call her “my” lit agent, even in the past, because even that part of the story was nebulous. The brief version is that I essentially got grandfathered in with this particular comedy-centric agent, whom I will now call L’agent because that’ll make her seem mysterious and foreign/hipster. She worked at a big company that closes big deals, and she was interested in bigger fish than this here gefilte (the hot dog of the sea). But one of my friends is a comic, and we have a really great working rapport; so when L’agent wanted to bring my comic friend aboard, she was greeted with the distinct pleasure of my existence.

Perhaps she was just being nice, humoring me to get to my pal, like so many wingmen in all those Vince Vaughn movies. But she offered to hear any ideas I might have for books, and it was just the opportunity I’d been waiting for.

From what I can tell, lit agents are the gatekeepers to mainstream publishing, and many work almost exclusively with comedians. They know the ins and outs of how publishing houses work, have a Rolodex (or virtual Rolodex) of contacts and the tenacity to endlessly wheel-and-deal. At the very least, they have lots of books in their office from authors I’ve heard of, and some that I haven’t!

I sat down with L’agent and opened my notebook to a page labeled “Best Ideas Ever”—my secret stash. One by one, I mapped out the books I wanted to write. In retrospect, a solid C+ performance. But L’agent, to her credit, listened to every single word I said before offering her feedback. “No, but it’s not a FOREVER no,” she said, which is a series of words I didn’t know could be in existence until they were spoken together.

Clearly, I had some thinking to do. I thanked her for her time, went home, and if the story ended here it’d be pretty deflating in and of itself. (Until I later embarked on doing all the real work not for her, but to avoid getting punched in the nuts—a real danger, considering I stupidly and drunkenly promised a friend I’d finish a book chapter on spec by January 1 or get punched in the nuts. And this guy doesn’t fuck around so I know it’s real.) But this is where it got really weird.

A few weeks later, after I sent over a couple ignored emails, I heard back from L’agent about a potential ghostwriting deal. It was a way to familiarize publishing houses with my writing, I was told, and they had a guy whose memoir would practically write itself; all he needed was someone like me to put in the work. I was cautiously optimistic, eager to learn all about this guy’s killer pitch, especially since it seemed like his book was essentially preapproved. Perhaps in distilling this man’s story I might decode something larger about the industry. The keys to mainstream publishing were within my grasp!

Here’s literally what I had to work with:

This guy thought fart machines sounded too unrealistic. So he made his own. Then, he brought it to public places and taped people’s reactions. He sells quite a few of these machines, and his videos get decent traffic.

That was the entire pitch.

Oh yeah, and he’s a devout Christian, so the book would have to have “Christian messages.”

Just…in general.

The deal fell through, though I can’t say I’m disappointed. I’m more confused than anything. If that guy can get serious consideration for his “idea,” then what the hell are the rest of us doing wrong? (By the way, his manager started the call with, “Before we get going, I have to get this off my chest: [Redacted] is the nicest and smartest and best guy to work with ever. Okay, phew, I feel better now.”) I guess advice in mainstream publishing—or television and film for that matter—doesn’t apply to people with tons of Twitter followers, and agents are only as good as their ability to spin yarn out of a semi-interesting Tumblr account.

But then again, no relationship based on booty texting has ever made sense. You think there’s something more there—something deeper, pun intended—and you’re completely wrong. You’re just playing a part in someone else’s grand plan, only they don’t know what the hell they’re doing, either.

GOOD LUCK, DREAMERS!!!!!!!!

Adapted from a column I previously wrote at Indie Reader. Also I have a new lit agent now who is an awesome dude. Also also, seriously check out that Kinane Twitter feud thing, and get that man his show back.

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Turkey Day calleth, and we answereth with sighs

We could say something here about how we meant to put this up on Monday and regretfully inform you we won't be posting during Thanskgiving week, thus depriving you of your incisive comedy writing for a period of seven excruciating days.

We could also move to Alaska and stalk Sarah Palin's relatives in the hopes of a getting a wacky photo with them while dressed as a robot, but we're not going to do that either because really, who would benefit?

We'll be back next week with more tidings of great chuckle-tude and openly-roasted chesnuts of something or other, but in the meantime why not peruse our archives or move to Alaska and stalk Sarah Palin's relatives while dressed as a robot? Happy Thanksgiving, Scratchers.

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Mr. Show, Seinfeld and the Comfort of Misanthropy | John Wenzel

The proliferation of ads featuring cars wrapped in giant red bows means the holiday season is upon us, and what better way to simulate the warm familiarity of a yule log DVD than by listing my favorite funnies to wrap up Comedy Comfort Food Week?

Like Stove Top stuffing or a delivery pizza, this comfort food is usually high in calories and best enjoyed on the couch while wearing buffet pants, so put down that literary sensation and turn on the glowbox, you elitist dick!

Mr. Show with Bob and David

The 1995-1998 run of Mr. Show is the most perfect and straightforward example of sketch comedy I’ve ever seen. My wife and I have forced ourselves to not watch it so much over the years since we’ve memorized every word, but when I want the fuzzy embrace of rampant misanthropy and suffocating sarcasm, this is the first place I look. I shudder to think of the influence David Cross and Bob Odenkirk’s unholy union has had on my personality. See also: Kids in the Hall

Seinfeld

Like you, your neighbor, her imprisoned brother, and everyone else in this Target, I grew up watching Seinfeld so its comfort factor is not surprising. But I also grew up with plenty of other sitcoms I don’t feel the need to watch from start to finish each time they come on TV. (And I own everything but the first couple season of Seinfeld on DVD, so it’s not like I’m hurting for it.) Seinfeld’s casting and acting are the perfect complement to its brilliant writing, making the best episodes feel somehow inevitable. When I’m watching a great episode I feel like I’m in The Zone. See also (to a much lesser extent): Curb Your Enthusiasm, 30 Rock

Blazing Saddles

Mel Brooks’ 1974 Western parody works so splendidly on so many levels that it’s tough to pinpoint what makes it so soothing. Beyond the clever race and class commentary, or the brilliantly cartoonish meta-ending, there’s a well-written, well-directed core of sweetness and nostalgia that betrays Brooks’ innate love of show business. My dad also introduced me to the film at a young age, so it has the golden smack of childhood to it — however littered with profanity and sexy-sex some scenes may be. And anyway, who wouldn’t want to spend an hour and a half with the gentle Zen of Alcoholic Gene Wilder? See also: Annie Hall, Harold and Maude

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Vonnegut’s cranky humor may not seem comforting in the traditional sense, but it always makes me feel like I’m part of some larger Human Family rather than a sad little dinghy in a sea of speedboats. I especially like returning to Breakfast of Champions and Galapagos when I need an encouraging perspective on evolution, human relationships or, uh, buttholes. To paraphrase something (I’m pretty sure) Vonnegut once said, he’s more disappointed optimist than satisfied pessimist, and wouldn’t you rather spend your hour of need with the former over the latter? See also: Richard Brautigan, John Kennedy Toole

Patton Oswalt, in all his forms

Few artists, comedic or otherwise, sum up my sensibilities as well as Oswalt, though I’m sure he’s much smarter than I am so it’s really more of an aspirational awe. As great as he’s gotten over the years, I’m still partial to his Comedians of Comedy days and his first Sub Pop album, Werewolves and Lollipops, which is my favorite stand-up album of the 2000s. If he’s a part of something, it’s a sign I need to check it out (we’ll let The King of Queens slide). See also: David Cross, Maria Bamford, Louis C.K., Joan Rivers Anything Tim and Eric-related

I should be really sick of Tim and Eric by now, but like Guided by Voices or anything having to do with Star Trek, they’re a perpetual source of joy. Throw a dart at the calendar and you’ll hit a day when I’ve re-watched a few clips of their Adult Swim series (Tom Goes to the Mayor or Awesome Show, Great Job!) or one of their countless online videos or collaborations. Sometimes I watch Eric Wareheim’s video for Beach House’s “Wishes” just to see the pink fireworks explode behind Ray Wise during the most heartbreaking/triumphant moment of the song (at 3:02, of course). See also: Aqua Teen Hunger Force, The Sarah Silverman Show

The Mighty Boosh

Other than “Old Gregg” and a couple of other sketches, I used to find this BBC show stiflingly insider and smug. What’s the big deal, weirdos? It’s just a couple of rock rejects playing dress up with high-school-play production values. Then my wife and I re-watched it from start and finish and realized its three year run (2004-2007) was criminally short. Gangly freak Julian Barratt can make me cry with a bump of his hips, and Noel Fielding’s art-damaged worldview has let loose some of the funniest, most original characters ever to molest television audiences. See also: The Office (BBC version), Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace

The Big Lebowski

The institutionalized cult that’s sprung up around this film makes me uncomfortable, since so much of it seems to be missing the point. But it truly is one of those films you can see 100 times and find something new on each go-round. The Coen Brothers’ innate understanding of stoner culture and the micro-details of the set dressing and dialogue somehow mesh brilliantly into a shambling, shaggy dog masterpiece that probably wasn’t as effortless as it seems. It’s also, to me, a career-best film for most of its lucky cast (including Tara Reid’s 30 seconds of screen time) who will probably never see another project like it again. See also: Fargo, The Hudsucker Proxy

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Stolen Memories of Cedric and Salt-N-PeppAH | Matthew Love

Snippets of my favorite bits of comedy spin through my mind all the time. So when I seek refuge in familiar laughs, I don’t generally sit to watch the entirety of Ghostbusters or read Cat’s Cradle. Nope, I just quietly luxuriate in fragments of things I love entirely out of context, their original dimensions warped by time and then blown up, poster-size. I stare at them as I stroll through the grand humor museum in my brain; sometimes, I’ll lean over and say to the unfortunate soul next to me, “Ray, the next time someone asks you if you’re a God, you say… yes!” and wait for him or her to reciprocate my excitement. Something in me knows the quote is not exact, and I don’t care.

I was an avid watcher of SNL in high school, and I remember the night Patrick Stewart brought his theatrical poise and well-articulated consonants to 30 Rock; one of the moments I remember most is not some rehash of A Christmas Carol, it’s Stewart introducing the musical guest, Salt-N-Pepa. In Stewart’s mouth, the laid-back moniker got a dramatic makeover with the help of a trained British actor’s enunciation: “Ladies and gentlemen,” Stewart said enthusiastically, “Salt. And. PeppAH!” Those four syllables in Stewart’s mouth were a clash of high and low culture, but you wouldn’t know it from Stewart’s chipper obliviousness. (I mean, the guy still gives tutorials on the quadruple take, so.) 

The weird part is: Until very recently, I presumed that this was just a memory I had that mattered to no one other than my sister and I. We’d laughed our asses off, did our impression of Stewart until it meant nothing and just carried that bit of experience around inside us. Then—I don’t remember how I stumbled across it—I found this on the internet:

For me, coming across this was startling; though it was a televised happening, it felt so inconsequential, I never would have suspected anyone else remembered this, much less cared enough about it to post it on the web. The weirdness does not come because I feel proprietary, I’m baffled because the internet’s catalogue of minutiae has grown so large that it includes :04 of my inner landscape that, to me, is nothing more than an inside joke. Now, I can see a crystal-clear copy of Stewart’s seemingly formal introduction; the warm fuzziness of my recollection suddenly has hard edges. It’s fun to see, but the specificity of it messes with my mojo. It is, and is not, what I remember. 

But here’s another, bigger, beautiful memory you may share: Kings of Comedy. An ex-girlfriend turned me onto it years ago, and one section in particular that we watched over and over again: a bit in Cedric the Entertainer’s set that you might call “Black People… We Run.” In it, Cedric notes that all mass murder in the U.S. seems to involve white people because, unlike Caucasians who wander toward danger, black folk head in the opposite direction with a quickness.

Yep, it’s a black people do this, white people do that joke, but Cedric pulls it off with panache. I hear the melody of his delivery: “We don’t need a run coordinator to get the runnin’ organized. God damn it, if you start runnin’, I’m going to take off runnin’ that’s just how it goes.”* I can visualize the physical bits he does: How running might interrupt a conversation without warning, or change the tenor of even the show in progress. Cedric tells the crowd if two or three of them started running, well, there’d be a lot of people nervously watching before leaping up themselves, ready to sprint, hollering, “Get Lisa an’ ‘em!”

I don’t have a DVD of Kings, and though I have pined to watch this clip, the producers have managed to keep it offline. The internet, in this case, did not have a memory I’d been searching for. For the sake of this piece, though, I checked Google, and here it is:

Part of me didn’t want to watch it. My memory is bound up with sweating on a couch in Brooklyn on a late summer night and laughing ‘til I ached—and at that time, my ex and I were falling in love but we’d not touched. Would watching Cedric be strange, like re-watching Patrick Stewart enunciate? Would it burst the sense of discovery, the anticipation, the camaraderie of that evening in my memory?

In a syllable, nah. Watching the bit again just affirmed how good it is and how charming Cedric is. Like all great art, it transcends one moment in my life and easily settles into another. But revisiting these favorite moments in the harsh glare of the present is a double-edged sword. On one hand, I  understand the source material with more clarity and am able to refresh the details. On the other hand, those these clips can hint at a memory, they can't recreate it.

* Yeah, probably wrong, it’s just what I remember. 

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You Shoulda Hung Out, Maaan: Revisiting Dave Attell's "Skanks for the Memories" | Julie Seabaugh

The other night I had the lonely bug. So I went out to this bar. I see a beautiful woman alone. I’m thinking, “She’s alone; I’m alone. Why not annoy the shit out of her?” So I walk over…I’m walking…I’m wearing clogs…and I notice she’s got a black eye. She’s got a shiner. I’m thinking, “Great, she doesn’t listen!”

Well, a couple of McNuggets and lies later, we’re back at my house. And we’re having sex doggy style. Now I didn’t plan on it; that’s just how she passed out. Thank you, slow gas leak! Fellas, have you ever had the experience of a woman yelling another man’s name out in the height of passion? Well this woman was yelling out names of men who have never ever lived; fantasy men. She’s like, “Give it to me, Chewbacca! C’mon now, give it! Work it, Spiderman! Not in my eye, Papa Smurf! And I’m thinking, “Is she crazy, like it says on her bracelet? Or is she just looking at my sheets? I dunno!”

But sex is not that important. You know what’s really important? That afterwards part, when you’re both naked and it’s warm and you’re watching the sun come up through the windshield. And you look in her eyes—you look in her good eye—and you know: you fucked a pirate.

Comedy Central Records released Dave Attell’s Skanks for the Memories on February 4, 2003. The artwork featured bleary-eyed, disposable-camera selfies of the then-Insomniac host surrounded by shirt-raising, tongue-protruding young ladies he’d encountered during his late-night visits to dive bars, after-hours eateries and seedy sex clubs. Track titles included “The Unf**kables,” “Midget Friend,” “Shaved Pubes,” “Sex Store,” “Amish Sex” and “Sex With Animals.” The liner notes included special thanks to “everyone else who has ever bought me a drink.”

Attell’s half-hour travelogue would air its third-season finale (“Long Island”) two days later, on Thursday the 6th. Going out with a bang while simultaneously offering product to sate fans through the four-month hiatus, Comedy Central timed the Best of Insomniac Uncensored: Volume 1 DVD to release the same day as Skanks, promoting the pair that evening with a signing at the Times Square Virgin Records.

I’d moved to New York City from Missouri a month earlier. But Attell and I had crossed paths before. From my first-ever Chicken Scratch post:

Senior year Dave Attell came to town and performed at Jesse Auditorium. By then I’d experienced the wonders of cable television, and his appearance came at the height of Comedy Central’s Insomniac with Dave Attell, of which I counted myself a fan. I interviewed him via phone a few weeks prior, got to go backstage at the show, then helped convince him to join a few of us across the street atThe ‘Berg.

Again, this was the height of Insomniac. He was sent Jäger from all over the bar, and, being unable to down all of them himself, encouraged us to help out. We complied.

The next morning I awoke, vomiting, on my friend Dan’s floor. I crawled on hands and knees to the bathroom. Head throbbing over the toilet, I distinctly remember asking myself, “I think I like comedy…?”

Four months later, there I was, shadowing Attell for a Las Vegas Weekly feature previewing Insomniac’s upcoming Sin City episode. I’d taken feverish notes as he performed in the dark, cramped basement of the Comedy Cellar, and interviewed him in a long-forgotten bar off Eighth Avenue. Now I stood respectfully off to the side, pen and notebook at the ready, as a line of some 150 eager young alcohol enthusiasts stretched from signing table to the escalator. It was some real rock-star shit, and I regarded the scene with awe and optimism. Was this what covering comedy in New York City typically entailed? Count me in.

But Attell just took it all in resigned stride, shrinking into his blue flannel, black “FUCK OFF” ball cap riding low, frozen half-grin framed by his manicured scruff. Not that he was discernibly cold toward attendees. He gamely smiled for photos; his booming “Heeey!” “Thanks, maaan!” “That’s aaawesome!” bounced off the chipboard CD bins.

Once he’d Sharpied his final signature to the final disk, he beelined out of there into the anonymity of the bustling Times Square night, no entourage, no looking back.

“There are at least three Dave Attells,” my Las Vegas Weekly feature would soon begin. “There is Attell the television host, the wide-eyed and enthusiastic life of the party. There is Attell the stand-up comedian, an angry, self-loathing and raunchy malcontent. And then there is the most enigmatic Attell of all: the loner. Like the other two, he’s a big drinker of alcoholic beverages and smoker of American Spirits. Unlike the other two, his volume sometimes drops a level and his eyes sometimes look sad. But then Attell the loner takes off in a flash of beer and baldness, and the faint whiff of loneliness disappears with him.”

I owed the man for piquing my interest in stand-up. Through my indoctrination to his world, I’d grow to understand finer points of the comedian mentality. Looking back for Chicken Scratch’s “Comfort Food” theme, I realize he also deeply imprinted my critical perceptions: with Skanks, Attell set a standard by which I would judge all subsequent comedy releases.

As a cohesive collection of jokes, that debut album was a beast. Joke after joke hammered down at a rate nearly rivaling that of Rodney Dangerfield’s formidable laughs per minute. Bemused little giggles and purring asides marked the times he managed to surprise himself. The offensive yet giddily nonsensical one-liners spilled forth like so many sloppy shots stretching down a dank slab of burnished oak. Yet with each onslaught of outright filth (or general inappropriateness, at the very least), Attell offered a measure of self-effacement.

So my cousin had a baby and I was watching her breastfeed for a couple of bucks…

I hate traveling, mostly ‘cause my dad used to beat me with a globe.

I'm sitting in the bus station, minding my own business, reading Ta-Da! magazine, a magazine by and for gay magicians…

Eggnog, who thought that one up? “I wanna get a little drunk, but I also want some pancakes.” You know what eggnog really is? You're not gonna want to hear it, but I'll tell ya: it's elf cum!

I hear that a lot. “Dave!” What? “You're talking about being gay. You probably secretly are gay.” And I'm like, Listen, voice in my head, I'm not! “How do you know you wouldn’t like it? How do you know you wouldn’t like it?” I know I wouldn't like it, other scarier voice in my head! ‘Cause one time while making a sandwich, a cucumber went up my ass…three times.

It’s a litmus test I tend to apply when meeting someone who claims to be into comedy: 1) Is he or she familiar with Dave Attell? 2) Meaning familiar enough to recognize my quoting his CD? If so, we’ll probably get along just fine. Maybe we’ll even hang out sometime, as in, “Yeah, let’s hang out sometime. Heh heh, ‘You shoulda hung out, maaan!’”

Ten years on, Skanks remains Attell’s only album, though three DVDs—a second Insomniac best-of, The Insomniac Tour Presents Sean Rouse, Greg Giraldo and Dane Cook and forgettable HBO special Captain Miserable--still float around for purchase. (The same can’t be said of 2005’s self-released Hey, Your Mouth’s Not Pregnant.) There’s also a digital-only collection of 2008 reboot The Gong Show with Dave Attell, which rightfully disappeared from Comedy Central after eight episodes.

Not that Attell hasn’t considered releasing a new CD in the interim. In March of 2010, for instance, he recorded a weekend of shows at Denver’s Comedy Works—the same venue that birthed Skanks—though he ultimately judged the output too inferior for a second Comedy Central album.

He’s continued touring and maintained his reputation as one of the most prolific writers in the industry, but he also lost his ass self-producing two seasons of Showtime’s Dave’s Old Porn. The correlation between that bummer of an announcement and August 22’s news that Attell signed up for an uncensored Comedy Central series plus a one-hour special is obvious. It’s a welcome development that the guy will get, you know, paid, plus his return to Comedy Central all but promises delivery of a quality product that plays to its host’s strengths. Uncensored programming with Attell at the helm lends itself to showcasing humor that’s less about pushing the limits of questionable content than allowing a group of professional one-uppers to be reactive, interactive and in the moment. If Comedy Central can recapture the Attell TV magic of ten years ago, and maybe even secure itself a Louie-caliber hit in the process, all the better.

And where there’s a new special, there’s the potential for a truly great Dave Attell release, one driven and inspired by his creating of a show as equally worthy of his time and talent as Insomniac. Despite requiring more than a decade to materialize, a proper Skanks follow up will nevertheless be superior to 98 percent of everything else out there. A whole new generation of diehard, album-quoting comedy fans will separate from the bandwagoning chaff. It will remind me not only why and how, but exactly what it sounded like to fall in love with quality comedy in the first place.

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Comedy Comfort Food | Steve Heisler

Thanks to the Internet and the exponential rise of the tech curve, comedy is easier than ever to produce and distribute. There is more now than ever before, not as much as there will be tomorrow. I could watch something new every day and never catch up. So naturally I just consume these things over and over instead.

WELCOME, TO CHICKEN SCRATCH’S COMEDY COMFORT FOOD WEEK, ALL WEEK!!!

30 Rock This is one of the purest joke vehicles I’ve ever seen on television—but not only are there killer one-liners about Shaquille O’Neal and Tracy Jordan having squid sex in space, the show’s got some heart. Liz Lemon and Jack Donaghy began as enemies, but over time became platonic pals who epitomized the sort of genuine, heartfelt, pure friendship I strive to have with everyone I know. I love Arrested Development and Louie as much as the next person who won’t shut up on Facebook, but 30 Rock is such a compelling blend of tragedy and comedy, sadness and joy, other dichotomous things. I can pop in any episode and find something to like.

Kyle Kinane “You ever fall asleep on your couch just so it feels like you’re laying next to someone?” That’s my favorite joke by my favorite misanthropic teddy bear Kyle Kinane, and it perfectly captures everything that makes him distinct. It’s unexpected, speaks directly to his ongoing struggles with the basic human condition, and makes mirth out of that sadness. Sets by the Chicago-born stand-up take the form of rambling (though only the appearance of such) monologues and stories, each wrestling with depression and loneliness until Kinane emerges victorious, giving them a noogie.

Should You Be Laughing at This? by Hugleikur Dagsson This is an Icelandic cartoon book my old cubemate Jonathan Messinger shared with me one day. We laughed and laughed. If you do the same, you are probably a great person.

The Simpsons seasons 3-10ish I like to pretend that The Simpsons got cancelled after 10 seasons, and every episode after that is part of a new show, called The Sampsons. That particular program is okay; it’s like a spin-off. But under those terms, The Simpsons is the greatest television show to ever exist. Moreso than even 30 Rock (but losing a point or two for not being on Netflix for watching at any second of any day), The Simpsons magically adds gravitas to even the stupidest of rake-stepping-on gags, and makes me laugh because I love every member of the family, and the town, so dearly.

Improvised Shakespeare Company For all these reasons, and more.

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The Broken Mic Stand: Bill Burr in Philly | Matthew Love

This past weekend, stand-up Bill Burr made a tour stop at the Tower Theater in Philadelphia; if comedy connoisseurs, or even fans of heckling videos, felt their Spidey-Sense tingling on Saturday, this was the reason. Though he has visited the City of Brotherly Love since his infamous appearance in Camden on the Opie and Anthony Traveling Virus tour of 2006, some odd anticipation of his visits there will probably always remain...

The circumstances of the O&A show are these: The crowd had been there for hours, they were drunk, rowdy, and had been booing many of Burr’s fellow comics—including tough cookies Bobby Kelly and Philly’s own Dom Irerra. [Secondarily, it’s useful to note that Philadelphians love booing and Burr himself insisted that he wasn’t going to stand for the same sort of treatment before he went on.] Burr took the stage and after a few unsatisfying attempts to tell jokes, the comic unleashed a torrent of foulmouthed invective on the crowd like nothing on record. Though Burr may not have realized it, after more than twelve minutes of eviscerating Philadelphians and all they held dear, he’d spawned a legend. Burr's Saturday show went down without incident. Still, the occasion made me think about the insanity of that appearance on the O&A tour, and how much transpired in one set. Here’s a breakdown of some significant moments in Burr’s epic rant, and what they meant to me while reviewing them:

:03 “You don’t stop talking, do you?” Despite the lackluster reception his fellow comics received before Burr went on, it’s clear he intended to at least try his material. But as bright and conversational as his tone is, it flips quickly.

:19 “Oh, fuck all you people. You know what, you fuckin’ losers? I hope you all fuckin’ die and I hope the Eagles never win the Superbowl.” With this, there’s an audible release of tension in Burr’s voice—it’s like an overburdened dam finally giving way—and the games begin. But the Eagles comment already hints at something: For all the bile that gushes forth from Burr like a firehose in the ensuing twelve minutes, it’s almost always playful. (If it weren’t funny, the ill-tempered crowd would have won.)

: 43 “I’m segueing into my next joke… You can line up in your Harold Carmichael fuckin’ jerseys and one at a time, you can all suck my dick.”  After the intensity of the initial wave of boos subsides, alongside the  disapproval you can hear a lot of people genuinely enjoying what Burr is up to. This line gets a laugh, and as he goes along, the sound of applause and laughter runs quietly counter to the booing. For this crowd-within-the-crowd, some bits kill.

1:02 “52 fuckin’ hours into a show, what the fuck am I going to do at this point?... Talking about Hitler, that’s not going to fuckin’ work… Let’s talk about heart disease, something you’re all going to fuckin’ die of and I’m going to laugh at your fuckin’ funeral.” Here, Burr sets his cards on the table: He acknowledges the futility of his task from the outset and gives up on material altogether. And after using up some straightforward insults, Burr begins whacking the audience in its collective sensitive spots.

1:58 “Eleven more minutes of this.” It’s unclear exactly whether this is a threat or a complaint, whether or not Burr intended to keep up his barrage. But this is the first indication that it’s a possibility.

2:00 “I hope you all get in your Ford Focuses and drive off the side of that faggot-ass Ben Franklin Bridge, you fuckin’ one-bridge-having piece of shit city that no one gives a fuck about.” Know how comedians win the crowd with a charming piece of local color about their city’s mayor or traffic patterns? This is the opposite.

3:12 “Did it really have to come to this, people?” He’s presumably talking about the behavior of the audience throughout the evening, and stepping forward for all of his abused cohorts backstage. Though neither Burr nor the crowd may have wanted the clash, it’s clear from his wicked grin that Burr is enjoying himself from time to time. (This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has ever seen him get under the skin of his listeners.)

4:05 “Fuckin’ Rocky is your hero? The whole pride of your city is built around a guy who doesn’t even exist. Joe Frazier is from there, but he’s black so you can’t fucking deal with him. So you make a fuckin’ statue for some three foot fuckin’ Italian...” The truth hurts, and this is one of the most astute and ugly truths that Burr hauls out. People have been talking about this comment since then, and some sort of civic pride organization has in the interim created an award for Frazier. Maybe Burr deserves credit for being an activist as well. 

4:22 “…you stupid cheesesteak eating fuckin’ jackasses.” Oh no, he didn’t. 

5:28: “What else, what else? I’ve attacked your mothers. Eight minutes, I’m doing it all.” If the crowd didn’t know what was happening, they do now. Will they settle in? No, that’s not in the cards, but the sonic conflict between Burr supporters and Burr detractors becomes more apparent from here one out. 

5:48 Burr addresses someone in the front: “What’s that sir? What do you have to say, sir? Never passed the eighth grade... Go back to the dock and go unload some shit, you fuckin’ warehouse-working, weed smoking fuckin’ disappointment to your mother.” This is an example of what makes this rant more than just an exercise in  fury; Burr doesn’t just take pot shots at the crowd, he works to make sure his insult is grounded emotionally. With all the broad slaps, somehow it’s the idea that the guy is a disappointment to his mother that hurts the worst, and makes the joke hit home.

6:01 “Seven minutes left… and I’m doing all fuckin’ seven.” Now, every time he announces how many minutes he has remaining, a swell of applause rises in the crowd. While it’s not an antidote for all the negativity, it must have been a comfort knowing some people were on his side. 

6:40 “Fuck you and fuck the Liberty Bell, shove it up Ben Franklin’s ass.” The last taboo. He’s called the city racist, trashed its sports teams, Rocky, cheesesteaks, the Ben Franklin Bridge, mothers, fathers and a few specific individuals in the crowd. The spirit of ‘76, unimpeachable American history and all that... why not? 

6:51 “Six minutes left and I will be selling my CD after this shit, you motherfuckers. And the only way you get one is if I throw one at your stupid heads.” What a beautiful notion—that after all the hatred he’s doled out, he’d still show his face to hustle merch. Apparently, he did follow up on his threat—though there were no reports of fans being hit in the head with CDs.

7:15 “This right here is the theme of my set, a broken mic stand.” Throughout the video, you can see Burr pounding the mic stand on the ground, almost like an invocation to some violent god to strike the whole site with a massive lightning bolt.

8:20 “I ironed my fuckin’ shirt for this shit. I went to the Banana Republic, picked up a $20 shirt off the rack.” This is the cutest confession he could have made at this point. If it was possible for him to endear himself to those with ears still open, this certainly did it.

9:04 In the video, you can see Burr exhale wearily. It’s his first sign of fatigue; and though he talks as though he were wrapping things up, “Each of you has been phenomenal…” he brightly reverses course with, “Oh no! I’ve got four minutes left to talk about you cunts!”

9:41 An audience member asks him about Dave Chappelle, and Burr expresses regret that he’s not on a tour with Chappelle. There’s a goofy irony here only now, given the trouble Chappelle had his summer in Hartford.

9:53 “Three fuckin’ minutes left.” Okay, maybe that bite in his voice isn’t theatrical anger.

10:47 “So, anyways, back to the material… I got a computer recently, people!” The irony in this comment did not take seven years to understand.

11:09 Burr starts to fantasize killing everyone in the crowd with a gun. It’s graphic, puerile and it’s clear that the man is running out of steam. But he started it and now, with about two minutes remaining, is determined to finish.

11:48 “One minute left in the period!” At this announcement, a huge cheer goes up. Hard to tell the percentage, but it sounds much more like an audience cheering someone on than anticipating an exit. 

11:54 “This doesn’t change anything, this set. I still fucking hate you people and I hate this fucking city.” Casual laughter is audible here. Burr’s remarks indicates a begrudging respect, as though enough people came around and the crowd close to winning him over.

12:20 “I’m out of time, you guys—you guys were here, man. Thank you very much. All of you go fuck yourselves in your own assholes.” Like a gentleman, Burr remembers to say thank you. Like a fighter, he throws one more jab on the way out.