Punch Lines Take A Beating In The Press

SHECKYmagazine shines when it tackles the media’s apparent bias against punch lines. In January, they called out the LA Times’ bias against mainstream comedy and now they caught this article in Philly.com attacking punch lines in television shows.

From the article:

Comedy isn't dead, it's just been outsourced - to shows more like Weeds than Everybody Loves Raymond. Shows that are not so much sitcoms as sitcomish, single-camera conceits that are slick and dramatic (but not quite so dramatic to be considered dramedies) - but also consistently funny. Like 30 Rock or The Office. Shows that do not pause for three seconds after the joke, shows that don't acknowledge there's been a joke at all. Shows that on paper might not be funny at all.

Now I appreciate awkward comedy, anti-humor, avant garde comedy, etc. as much as the next bitter, media-obsessed scribe. But do we really have to choose? Is it so wrong to have punch lines? Must everything be subtle and dry? Must everybody be a disciple of the Del Close/Andy Kaufman School of What The Fuck?

Consider the great comedians who use punch lines (Demetri Martin, Patton Oswalt, Doug Benson, Chris Rock). Are these comedians wrong for entertaining us with written jokes that have set-ups and resolutions?

Of course, critics have a built-in postmodern, academic bias against resolutions. Everything must be open-ended. No resolutions or statements allowed.


Ironically, I can’t find a satisfying resolution for this blog post. Happy now, you joke-hating fucktards?

Mundane Dream Journal: MyDreamSpace

After watching The Science of Sleep on DVD, I marvelled at how much surrealism my dreams lacked. In this column I hope to reach out to people with similarly ordinary dreams.

I dreamt that I checked my MySpace profile to see if the Mates of State song successfully loaded to my profile. I woke up before I could find out. This represents my repressed desire to have copious amounts of unctuous sex with vintage footwear.

Quirk Off

According to this Atlantic Monthly article (via BuzzFeed), the quirky hipster sensibility behind Miranda July, Wes Anderson and This American Life is passe. Though I'm not sure I agree with all his examples (Flight of the Conchords transcends trendiness), I had tried to express a similar sentiment when I was interviewed by Time Out New York, saying that hipsters might ruin comedy. Like I say in the interview, they haven’t necessarily done so, but there is a great danger they might. Two things to add to what I said in TONY:

a) Quirk might not be such a problem, but the prejudice against non-quirk is a bit much. Heaven forbid anyone make anything close to a statement about anything. One of the few things that mainstream comedy can still do better than alternative comedy is put what’s wrong with the world (war, bigotry, etc.) into perspective. Irony has its place, but it seems like outrage against the war doesn’t play well in the alt rooms. I haven’t seen it anyway. In fairness, comedians are rarely able to pull off anti-establishment screeds as well as Hicks or Carlin did, but, like Michael Hirschorn says in the Atlantic Monthly article, irony is easy, which means that it often comes across cheap.

b) Irony is cheap because it is far from a scarce resource. But, just like too many cheap Dollar Menu burgers make you sick, too much irony—especially the nerdy, “robot vs. ninja” hipster/nerd variety, can be cloying. I guess it’s like indie rock—after a while, the clichés wear on you, but the mainstream is far worse.

gag reel

u know u wanna read it

Jack McBrayer's Drug Tips

The only thing wrong with this video: you can't vote "funny."

In Search Of The Elusive Vagina Reynolds

I searched for "Vagina Reynolds" and tracked her history.
First, I saw her in the site Asia Pacific Cyber Games. But only her name was there. No communication was picked up with Vagina Reynolds.

In Front Page mag, she made a comment about censorship. When you click on the comment: the page cannot be found.

Finally, in a site about see-through lingerie from Kiev, she disappears in an interminable sea of Google ads.

Where in the web is Vagina Reynolds?
Here's a picture.

This Is Why Rolling Stone Will Never Shut The Fuck Up About Bruce Springsteen

Schedules: Future Of Viral Vids

This article on online comedy initiatives in the latest issue of TONY has an interesting detail in the print edition: it gives the release date of the Bill Murray viral video, which was released today.



So is this the future of viral video? Will we have Fall Viral Video Previews? A summer viral season? Will Star Wars Kid fans be skeptical of upcoming sequels? Like Star Wars Kids?

Call me old-fashioned, but I don't look forward to a future of Chocolate Rain forecasts.

Comedians Are Bad Porn Actors

We’ve all heard that old canard: people become comedians because they want to make people laugh. That’s like saying people get into porn because they like to fuck. Who doesn’t like to fuck or make people laugh?

Just like almost every porn star was sexually abused, 99 percent of comics were verbally abused. Good comedians want to make people laugh; great comedians want revenge.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the porn and comedy industries are filled with fuck-ups; the industries themselves are capitalist perversions of things that humans have naturally enjoyed. Getting a rim job, sharing a laugh—these are intimate moments that normal people are content with experiencing without an audience or a paycheck.

And just like a porn actor’s worst nightmare is impotence, a comedian’s worst nightmare is being successfully zung by the school bully.

Sometimes those bullies aren’t people but institutions (religion, capitalism, Aerosmith). From Richard Pryor to David Cross, comedians have had a chip on their shoulder.

Aerosmith: the reason for alternative rock and comedy

So do I like to make people laugh? Almost as much as I want to make bullies cry and porn stars cum.

You Are Not As Over It As You Think You Are

How Drugs Can Enhance Brain-To-Game Interface

"Direct Brain-to-Game Interface Worries Scientists", the headline says. But drugs can enhance the experience:

So I push this button?

Marijuana: You eat more power-ups

Cocaine: Controls are rapid-fire

LSD: Every level is a warp zone

Alcohol: You act like every game is Dance Dance Revolution

Salvia: Game over

How To Be A Hateful Comedian

It's not easy being a totalitarian nowadays. Everyone is so PC. Stand-up comedy is the only field left where you can say whatever you want, damn the consequences. But what if you fall prey to the Kramer effect and no one wants to work with you again? Don't fret; this How-To will do plenty to teach you what it takes to be the best of the bilious.

1) ALWAYS pick an easy target

Don't bother going after specific ideologies (trickle down economics) or deflating certain fantasies (macho politically incorrect fantasy). Always go after Asians, Indians or retards (AIR).

2) When in doubt, curse

Fuck the shopping list; we all remember Lenny Bruce because he talked dirty. So let's say you can't quite articulate why the austere cultural traditions of Asians piss you off--just bob and weave like a drunk and say "fucking Asians."

3) You Love Nothing

Well, seriously speaking, you love thinking about William S. Burroughs licking mint tea off a Moroccan manservant's firm nut sac, but never say that onstage. If anything, say you hate the things you love.

4) NEVER say you hate pussy or beer

Say you hate football, say you hate America but never say you hate pussy or beer. Don't even say you hate the taste of pussy and beer. In fact, you might do yourself a favor and say that nothing tastes better than some 19-year-old Russian poon soaked in freshly-brewed lager

5) You hate your life even if you are rich and handsome

You have a girlfriend who blows you and buys you tickets to see action movies. Nope; she's still a shrewish cunt that is unworthy of your love. You are actually proficient at your day job and are gainfully employed; onstage, you remember that you are a pissed-off waiter who hates people with special orders

6) If you've found enlightenment after visiting that ashram in the Midwest that your roommate can't shut up about, make fun of your roommate

Aww come on man. If you were really enlightened you would know that suffering is a part of the human condition so you would suffer onstage then after the show snort some devil's dandruff off a drunk hooker's tits.


7) But what if some guy gets me on camera phone being an obnoxious blowhard? Like what happened to Kramer?

Get out a Super Soaker and squirt it at random audience members. Squirt it at all cell phones. That way the cell phone user will be electrocuted. At the very least, the evidence will be destroyed.

8) And how about those fucking Muslims?

Seriously. Crowd work is never easy. but rally the crowd behind concentration camps for Muslims and you are heckle-proof. If you are Muslim, then you should still say it. You people are killing yourselves blowing yourselves up anyway, concentration camps are good for the environment and y'all go to heaven quicker.

9) There is never too much hate

Secret: hateful guys get pussy. Try it. Get drunk and yell at everybody in a bar. See how much ferocious pussy you drain your hateful balls with.


10) What about the alt-rooms?

Sure I get it. You want some indie intercourse. Some Lower East Side Snatch. Some Park Slope poon. Just say you hate Nickelback. Which is true if you know how to read this list and have a high-speed Internet connection anyway.

Tricornered Hats Lead To Musket Wounds

And trucker hats lead to trailers. Not only do hipsters gentrify poor neighborhoods (diminishing the sphere of influence ethnic cultures have) but they also want to replace progressive New York culture with retro rural chic.

You'll have to pry this trucker hat from my cold, dead head

So trucker hats are fin, trailers are the craze.

By '08, trailers will be passe and guns will be hot, leading to homeless coke addicted hipsters with guns. Ironic redneck ghetto chic.

In '09, the KKK will be hip. The new KKK style will be white hoodies with lower-case KKKs emblazoned on them.

Canada, here I fucking come.

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Remembrance of Videos Past #49: Guns N Roses, "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" (Live at the Ritz)"

I never liked the studio version of this song on Use Your Illusion II. This, however, is GN'R in all their ragged, coke-freeze glory.
A '90s era Guns song played during the Appetite days. Slash's solo here is like giving cunnilingus to a banana bread muffin. And the banter.

"You know what time it is right now?"

It's the one year anniversary of "Remembrance of Videos Past."

Here's a look back at all the others.

And here's the one year anniversary special.

So great watching the audience trying to get louder than Axl.



BONUS:

Black Crowes, "Thorn in My Pride"

Mundane Dream Journal: Dry Eyes

After watching The Science of Sleep on DVD, I marvelled at how much surrealism my dreams lacked. In this column I hope to reach out to people with similarly ordinary dreams.

I was on this Disney World ride with my friends. The ride was stopped while we were on it and this Asian gentleman with a blow out haircut stepped into the car we were in, offering to moisten our contact lenses. My friends declined, but I said sure. I expected him to put the eye drops in for me, but he made a nervous face implying I should do it myself. I tried to but I kept missing my eye.

He kept saying "Come on" until I woke up. Good thing -- I was late for work. This represents my repressed desire for the Burger King to be an Asian man.

Gag Reel

Just read the first graf if u don't have time

Line Of The Millenium

"Bret Michaels Will Not Be Played!"-Bret Michaels, last night's episode of Rock of Love

Yeah, if you mean your solo album, Songs of Life.

I don't know why I watch Rock of Love. Suzanne Somers Bret Michaels is not as charismatic as Flavor Flav. The girls are not as unruly as Charm School's.

And every other song sounds like "Every Rose Has Its Thorn." Seriously. I think one of them is called "Every Row Has Its Corn."

Every Bro Has His Porn

You're in your goddamned 40s Bret. How do you explain to your kids that their potential stepmother's crowning achievement was saying "I want some rocker ass" during a 30-second promo? I know it's embarrassing to work as a temp. Fuck it dude, join the Army. Be a special breed of Motorcycle Soldier. Keep it smoothed out on the Captain America tip and shit.

Or better yet, be Bush's brain; take Karl Rove's job. Be a "poison"-ous turd blossom.

Start a Rudyard Kipling book club.

Enter the Chinese toothpaste market.

Fuck it dude, just take some UCB sketch classes. You would bump David Cross in a rock musical with Yo La Tengo.

Anything but bitch and moan on VH-1 about a starfucker.

Yes, that's what he means by "I will not be played." Some woman is not there for him, but because he is a star.

The rest of them are not star fuckers however. Seriously, they never heard of you.

Things To Check Out

Cloverfield Tickets



Comix Two Year Anniversary Show


Michael Show V, Michael Ian Black
Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter will be the next participants in their ongoing experiment in improvisation. The dueling Michaels will go funny mano-a-mano in an improvised humor competition, to be posted on August 14, 2007.

The humor agon will go live at exactly 9 a.m. or so on August 14.





This Is Why I Brunch

I Now Pronouunce You Adam And Andy...