posted 03-12-2002 05:17 PM               

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I went to a comedy club in Green Bay once, back when I lived in that blissful land of cheese and football, and the acts ranged from terribly amusing to just plain painful to watch. There was one fellow who wasn't up there long, for whom I just felt a deep and sincere embarrassment. I'd always wanted to try that myself - the stand-up schtick, that is, and not the embarrassment - but watching that poor fellow flail about on stage like a dying fish cured me of any urges to take the stage myself. Noooooo thank you.

Sadly, and really thus completely circumventing the point of this entire thread, I can't remember the poor fellow's name, else I'd warn everyone about him. That said, there is an active stand-up circuit in the upper midwest, between Milwaukee and Minneapolis, so chances are that if there is anyone still doing good stand-up, I had several opportunities to miss them.

posted 03-13-2002 03:03 AM               

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Philadelphia doesn't seem to have much of a standup scene. I'm sure there are clubs, but no one with much star power comes through here. My guess is New York, Atlantic City and Washington are far more lucrative stops on the schedule. I admit, I never tried real hard to take advantage of New York's comic scene, bustling as it was. It can be such an expensive proposition that I better be damned sure I'm gonna laugh before I pay a cover charge and buy overpriced Cokes.

It does seem like stand up has declined in prominence somewhat, doesn't it? There used to be a couple syndicated shows a week dedicated to it, now, there's pretty much nothing.

posted 03-13-2002 08:52 PM               

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[First off, I loved Square Pegs. Yeah, I know I'm old. And geeky.]

I go a lot when I'm in LA. It's relatively inexpensive, not too far to drive, tends to be an activity that most people like (I have some very diverse friends down there, so it's nice to have something where I can see all my friends and everyone has a nice time), and mostly the comedians are hilarious. Often their jokes become running inside jokes, as happened this summer in Italy when we kept quoting a dude we'd seen a few weeks before we left all together. And we get tons of laughs after at the people who fall flat, too.

I know SF has some great comedy clubs, and this is actually on my list of things to look into doing to get myself out and about more. [Shut up. I really do have that list. I'm pathetic, remember?]

posted 03-20-2002 11:58 PM               

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Back in high school, Kevin and I turned quite a few of Johannsen's routines into running jokes. Come to think of it, we still do. This may be because we haven't come up with a really good running joke in years, and are coasting off our original material. I dunno.

I do think that what keeps me from trying to see more stand up is my fear of empathizing too much with the guy/gal if he/she bombs. That's an unpleasant experience, at least for me.

posted 07-18-2002 12:55 AM            

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My favorite stand-up is Brian Regan. I've never seen him live unfortunatley, but I've caught two of his shows on Comedy Central. Top notch both times.

You may remember him from AMC Theaters' Pre-Show Entertainment as the guy who after being told by the concessionist to "Enjoy your movie." He responded, "You too." D'oh! (Cause she wasn't gonna see the movie. Get it? Ahhh... Trust me. It's funny.)

But now they have that stupid Stryker family crap.

posted 07-18-2002 02:57 AM               

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Jake's official site is now selling a CD of a show he did right after the 2000 election. You need this CD.

'The new president's going to decide if we should as a country spend billions of dollars to build this laser defense system. It's a computer thing, someone shoots a missile at us, and the computers locate it and then we laser it . . .

We can't even count! So you know I'm a little bit skeptical we're gonna get that thing to work.'

posted 07-23-2002 12:29 PM               

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Jake is one of a small breed of comedians who seem to exist a bit more on the brainier side of life. By this I mean: I'm pretty sure his politics jive with mine. On the CD Dave mentions, there's a good fifteen or so minutes dealing with the 2000 election fiasco; during the show we saw in Baltimore he did the same act, and it seemed to me that he leaned a little farther to the left. (As in one statement: "How about that crazy Ralph Nader? He thought the corporations were going to team up with the government and f&ck us all...")

I wish I had more examples, but it looks to me as though comedians who include political material in their acts are generally more liberal than conservative. (I'm not counting uber-reactionary Dennis Miller here; he's sort of in the category of "random entertainment figure" these days.) I could be wrong though; maybe it's because I lean to the left, and just gravitate toward what I find funny and ignore everything else.

But if I'm right, does that say something about society, or does it say something about the classes and groups of people who watch stand-up? And what constitutes a stand-up comic anyway? At what point did Dennis Miller stop being an idiotic stand-up comic and start being an idiotic entertainment figure? Does Saturday Night Live have something to do with it?

posted 07-25-2002 12:30 AM            

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Several people have told me that I should turn some of my more humorous rants (mainly those about being spastic - "athletically unfortunate" if you will - into stand-up routines. There are plenty of places to try, and it's cheaper than therapy, but there is a drawback. Whenever I actually try to make someone laugh, the don't. It's sort of a loud silence, if you get my drift.

I think this is probably the case with many people. Perhaps I should begin to champion the cause of the "comically unfortunate"?

posted 07-25-2002 04:34 PM               

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It may be cheaper than therapy, but then again, most days therapists don't throw rotten edibles at you.

Most days.

posted 08-09-2002 11:24 PM               

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Henry Rollins? Hit-or-miss?

Is this to imply that he hits?

posted 08-10-2002 02:55 AM               

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Ok, he was not bad. His stories occasionally got longer than they might have been, but all around for a guy who doesn't do this for a living day in and day out he was pretty good. Plus, I like Henry Rollins. And I really like his leftist opinions. My roommate got slightly bored by the end, however. (But the story with the taxi driver in Bangkok was pretty much worth the wait.)

Lewis Black, no surprise here, killed.

posted 08-10-2002 12:09 PM               

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I may have to re-evaluate Mr. Rollins.

And any episode of The Daily Show featuring "Back in Black" is an episode worth watching, and then worth watching again at 7:00 the following night.

posted 08-19-2002 08:44 AM               

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Didn't catch the name of the comic on Comedy Central last night/this morning, but he was discussing his trip to Ireland to visit his cousins, and the rationale behind step dancing:

"They came up with a dance where they wouldn't spill their drinks."

So simple, I can't believe I never saw it before.

posted 03-20-2003 07:26 PM            

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Ahh... The genius that is Brian Regan. Check out www.brianregan.com for more clips and skits.

I'd also like to mention Joe Matarese. I saw him live last month and boy that was some good hilarity. Well worth the cancer I'm gonna get from that smoke invested fire hazard the show was in. He actually did an impression of Brian Regan during the show. "Ya get yourself a screeen doooor!" ...Yeah that's only funny to me...

[This message has been edited by Brian Thomer (edited 03-20-2003).]

posted 04-04-2003 10:07 AM               

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Jake Johannsen and Brian Regan will both be on Comedy Central Presents tonight, with Jake's all-new episode appearing at 10 and Brian's soon after.

This, by the way, is a sneak preview of what life will be like When the Thomer Brothers Rule the World.