Just For Laughs today announced that the keynote address at their annual conference, which runs during the July 15 – 17 part of its Just For Laughs festival activities (July 7 – 18), will be given by Lewis Black. And everyone’s favorite underdog comedian Andy Kindler, like he does every year, will give the State of the Industry Address.

In addition, festival organizers announced that JFL will expand this year, creating a Comedy Bootcamp for Film. Its for anyone interested in the 2010 Telefilm Canada Features Lab. You can check out cfccreates.com and hahaha.com/conference for details. Three teams will get the opportunity to pitch their script to a panel of comedy experts and receive feedback before the Telefilm festival.

MONTREAL — Every year, self-proclaimed underdog comedian Andy Kindler delivers the State of the Industry Address at the Just For Laughs festival. If you’re unfamiliar with this comedy ritual, let me explain it; it’s pretty simple. Kindler spends an hour telling a few hundred comedians and industry folks how much of a miserable failure he is in the business. In between explaining why everyone hates him, he makes fun of the comedy industry.

To be clear, this is a performance for the industry and so a lot of his quips and jabs would not be fully appreciated by casual comedy goers. Although when he makes a comment like, “Maybe my comedy needs to be more muscular” referring to Dane Cook, I think it’s safe to say we knows he’s making fun of Cook, something he usually does every year.

So in his 14th year, Kindler did very little to change things up, because, really that’s not the point. Also, in order to appreciate his address fully, you have to suspend your disbelief— a lot. Kindler is nowhere near an unsuccessful comedian. He’s been on Letterman 17 times, appeared on 23 episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond, has had his own Comedy Central Presents, was on the Root of all Evil with Lewis Black and is a nationally touring headliner. I guess the idea is that after doing stand-up for so long he should be a superstar like Howie Mandel, who Kindler explains made $12 million last year, which got him on the “Forbes list of Horrible Celebrities.”

But Kindler is a marginal, very well respected act. His comedy style doesn’t necessarily appeal to the masses. And it never will. But most comics would kill to have his career.

That said, I wanted to share with you, a list of things Kindler told the crowd last week during his speech in Montreal that he would change if only Barack Obama would name him Secretary of Funny. Let us know what you think in the comments section.

• Recall Larry the Cable Guy
• An elimination of all song parodies
• A 20 percent cut in “shock comedy”
• Fines for using the word “retard” on stage
• A regulation on Adam Sandler movies
• High tariffs on overseas profits
• A federal option for comics not employed by Judd Apatow

MONTREAL – Tommy Tiernan is a force. He’s a goddamn force. Spend an hour watching Ireland’s biggest comedian and you couldn’t disagree—unless you’re dead inside. His performance at the Imperial Theatre Friday night for the Just For Laughs festival yielded a partial standing ovation; and here’s why. He’s a fucking force.

A few bits into his show, Tiernan tells the crowd that his show is like a “breathing hole.” It’s the place we’re allowed to ascend to – or descend, depending how you look at it – after a day of being nice to people and suppressing our impulses. He also explains that, “stand-up comedy is reckless” and that “there are things that will be said in here that will not work in the outside world.” Later, he tells the crowd that it seems the older we get, the more rules are levied upon us. Governments “try to legislate instinct out of society.” Each time Tiernan peppers one of these declarations on his set, he helps transform the concept of stand-up comedy into somewhat of a movement, a place for spiritual revelation through comedy.

Armed with a breadth of comic abilities rivaled by no one in stand-up today – no one! – Tiernan is able to expertly write and perform jokes born from every corner of the mind. Politics, graphic sex, family, relationships, international observations and drugs: it’s all covered with the energy of an erect 18-year-old – the wiry comic makes light on his feet and sweats profusely – and the focus of a learned, quick-witted prophet.

Throughout the show, titled Tommy Tiernan, Eh, he knocks Barack Obama down—and not in that Daily Show-esque way, wherein they poke fun at the president only because they did it to the last guy. Instead, Tiernan acts like he wants to take the piss out of Obama. He enjoys telling the Canadian crowd that Obama is just another tool of the system and not at all the champion of the people most think he is. “America won’t be saved until they elect a tree as president,” he says, referring to the idea that none of us are just people, that in the past we were trees or rivers and the like. Lofty? Sure, but Tiernan doesn’t take it too seriously.

One of Tiernan’s most astute observations of the night was about America as well. As Tiernan tells it, we spend all our lives faking niceties. In Ireland, he says, “we don’t say ‘have a nice day.’ We say ‘good luck’ because we know it’s a cruel world.” Then, in order to wind down from their days, Americans go home and watch the most vile, violent television programming like CSI.

Tiernan is everything a well-rounded comic should be: beyond delivering an enormous rate of laughs per minute, he’s introspective, fearless and inspiring.

Read our interview with Tiernan from last year and buy Tiernan’s 2008 DVD Something Mental here.

MONTREAL — Ok, so I’m here in Montreal prepping for tonight’s fine comedy shows at Just For Laughs. But first I had to get to the hotel, ya know? Me and the wife shared a shuttle with comedians Rich Vos and Bonnie McFarlane; they’re married if you didn’t know. The four of us were relegated to our own shuttle because we were both traveling with small children.

To kill some time on the way downtown, I asked Rich to say a few things into the camera. And he and Bonnie very nicely obliged. Enjoy.

Starting tomorrow, we’ll be in Montreal covering the Just For Laughs comedy festival, the longest-running fest of its kind. In its 27th year, the fest is hosting the likes of Louis C.K., Lewis Black, Marc Maron, Jim Breuer, Aziz Ansari and many more. Make sure to check back here often for blog posts as well as video and audio.

For the time being, feel free to check out the festival’s official site at hahaha.com and our interview with Bruce Hills, the COO of Just For Laughs from last year.

Marc Maron’s new one-man show Scorching the Earth, originally produced by Punchline Magazine in New York City from January through March at the Green Room was selected to run at this year’s Just For Laughs festival in Montreal. Maron will perform the show nine times throughout the fest, starting tomorrow.

More recently the Montreal Gazette chose Maron’s show – out of dozens – as one of six must-see performances at this year’s festival. If you’re in the Montreal area or are planning to be at the festival, we highly recommend you check it out. Here are the dates and show times. And here’s what Time Out: New York said about Scorching the Earth earlier this year.