Mo’s History of American Alternative Comedy

Check out this great Dead Frog Series I'm writing all week.

Part 1

Part 2

Stay tuned for part 3 later today!

Canadians: Are They "Da New Niggaz"?

Anybody can post videos from the usual suspects (Tim and Eric, Whitest Kids U Know) but how about fresh new faces from the comedy underground? Check out this video featuring Todd Montesi, Joe Maywalt, Calvin Cato, Tom Nevin, Ruben Mehta, Matt Nagin, Bodger Millard and many others.

Zen Jokewriting Journal #5

I was inspired by Matt Ruby's post to "keep speaking no matter what." In this case, writing.

My muscles are tense and my belly feels like it is full of honey and heartache. Death seems like sleep to me: I need it. I feel like I'm death deprived. I really need to die-been awake too long. Led Zeppelin and birds. Mandolins. Mandolins have a nice trilling sound. For a metal band Zep used a lot of mandolins. They used a pan flute too right? I wanna do that. Do excessive cock comedy and piss off the hipsters. Blech my ear is itchy.

My mom made me shave my beard. I wanted to keep it but she wouldn't stop her Rosie Perez yelp. This piercing shriek. The shriek gives you power but people don't like you. It's kind of like having nukes-everyone fears you no one likes you.

Outer bor-

You know what? Even food is being hit by the recession. Food. Even McDonald's-the service economy-is being hit. You may have trouble getting a job at McDonald's. Ear hair.

At least I can catch up on my death when I'm unemployed.

Ahh, that's bleak.

I'm just sayin, death like sleep

Coma

that sounds good

So does Sizzlers

Sizzlers would put me in a coma.

Itchiness

Death has to get rid of itchiness right

Coffee makes me feel guilty'

I wonder how much coffee Hitler drank

Did he play Mandolins
and piss off hippies

He was a vegetarian

Nyah nyah

My wrists

My wrists need rest
Eternal rest

Remembrance of Videos Past #57: Motley Crue, "You're All I Need"

No one's more tired of being ironically dismissive of hair metal than I am. But this is a deep cut like no other.

When I was 14 in 1990 and I first heard this power ballad, Motley Crue's "You're All I Need" off 1987's Girls, Girls, Girls, my whole moral foundation was shaken. Vince Neil sings about stabbing his girlfriend in the heart because she doesn't love him. Talk about a kiss-off. I stared at the lyrics in the liner notes that came with the cassette tape, trying in vain to read between the lines. I even asked my friend Bill if Vince Neil meant it. Bill was like "He wants to kill her-that's hilarious. Why aren't you laughing you pussy." So I laughed it off.

Here we are, nearly twenty years later, and I find this song on YouTube. This song is like the national anthem...of a nation called White Trash...ica. You thought you've read the worst YouTube comments, check out this little hosanna here:


this video is soo sweet! i mean this song is about a man and he loves this girl so much that he would kill her so no one else could have her, i think thats pretty remarkable how motley crue put that into a great song!!!! MOTLEY FUCKIN CRUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nothing says love like being driven by a smoldering murderous rage and thrusting a steak knife into your girlfriend's left ventricle.

3 Things I Learned The Hard Way

Comedian/friend Abbi Crutchfield (who did my show [Comedy Ain't Noise Pollution] on April 12) asked me to discuss 3 things I learned the hard way. Here goes:


1) Crack is Wack



One time I was dating this white trash belle. I walked in on her neighbor's garage. They were huddled around a blunt. I smoked some with them and stared out into the swampland. I turned around and they were rolling another blunt with crack rocks in it. They offered it to me and I said "No thanks, I don't smoke crack." D Rock said "It's not crack, it's coke. Plus you just smoked it." TA-DA!!!! So I realized I didn't like crack...$180 later that night.

2)Never Go To A Chain Restaurant By Yourself

You look like a creep. The hostess says "Party of ONE?!" The waitress says "Hey guys" to you and feels embarrassed. The other tables think you are a creep. You have to spend a LONG time avoiding eye contact with the other patrons. Don't get me started on DRINKING alone at Chili's with Bread playing on the PA.

3) Never Tell A Girl You Have A Crush On That You're Suicidal


In high school I had a crush on this girl named Gina. Her friend told me she was suicidal but told me not to tell her he told me so. Can you say COMMON INTERESTS?

I would call her and say "I'm suicidal. Sometimes I don't know why I go on." She said "Um...that's nice." I called her the next day and said "You don't get it. I'm really suicidal. Here's a poem I wrote." A few months later of this, I was called into the principal's office and had to see a psychiatrist. MORAL OF THE STORY: Never tell a girl you'll die for her more than once.

Jokes I Hope Chris Rock Does Not Tell Opening For Metallica

Yes, we know, indie comedians are getting love at indie rock shows. But is this really the next logical step?

Now, Bonnaroo is trying to up its own ante, slotting its first comedian for the main stage at the 2008 event in mid-June. Chris Rock will perform right before Metallica, to what Farman estimates should be 70,000-80,000 people.

It's your move, Chris Rock. You can either tell funny jokes or make shitty Metallica jokes. Call me paranoid, but these are the jokes I'm afraid you'll come up with:

You know shit is fucked up when a bunch of white people is beating each other up and screaming "Master, Master."

Color our world blackened? Shit, you can't even color Brooklyn blackened anymore!

All daddy would get was the big piece of blackened chicken.

Fans called their self-titled 1991 album The Black Album. I call it "the white trash album."

My Wall Street Journal

If you don't read HuffPo or Digg, you may not have heard of a naked Ann Coulter in a satirical newspaper that a thin-skinned media mogul does not want you to read (no, not Hugh Hefner).

Want to rankle Rupert Murdoch like a festering boil? BUY THIS PAPER (before his people buy all copies)!

Comedy Ain't Noise Pollution TOMORROW

Content Is Not King

Rule numero uno to making a viral: content is not king (via Medium)



Same can be said for comedy: content is not as important as form. The punchline must be louder than the set-up.

Example:

Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz was outsted in a coup d'etat led by the CIA...IN 1954!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Remembrance of Videos Past #56: Ugly Kid Joe, "Neighbor"

What was the link between SNL and Ugly Kid Joe? "Everything About You" was in "Wayne's World." And in this video a fear-stricken Pat hides from the new noisy metal neighbors next door.

Ugly Kid Joe, like SNL, have an adolescent appeal about them. Teens who could not go to bars would watch SNL live and giggle at Hans and Frans. Ugly Kid Joe had the most sophomoric lyrics imaginable. "Everything About You" may be the most popular hate rock song in history. "Neighbor" 's chorus distorts the Mr. Rogers theme and has the protagonist picking his toe jam and smelling his socks.

If any early '90s metal bridge will remind you of what a loser you are, try this:

"I drink, and I stink
I smoke, I'm a joke"

There is a whiff of revolution in this song: white trash lowering the property value. I would pay to watch families like this gentrify Brooklyn. Imagine Ugly Kid Joe scaring an androgynous hipster who looks like Pat?

This video is like a shitty blockbuster comedy without the shitty blockbuster comedy (unless you count this).

I HOPE I DIDN'T RUIN YOUR DAY!