We’re obviously not surprised that our pick to win the Grammy for best comedy album, Patton Oswalt, didn’t win the award tonight, seeing as mainstream names like Kathy Griffin and George Lopez were on the nominee list.

And we’re happy (kind of) that Stephen Colbert snagged it instead (instead of one of the other nominees), for his A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All (released in November of 2008, making it eligible for the 2009 entries).

But, there is this: as far as we can tell, Colbert’s release, nominated in the Best Comedy Album category, is a DVD; so it’s not an album. A scan of Comedy Central’s online shop and Amazon.com shows no audio version of Colbert Christmas. Other media outlets explain it by calling it the soundtrack of his DVD special? So you can just take out the musical parts of a DVD, not release it commercially but get it nominated for an album Grammy? Seems like a lot of shoe-horning for no reason. It’s not like there weren’t dozens of proper audio comedy albums put out in 2009.

Don’t get us wrong. We love Stephen a great deal. But we think it’s high time the Grammy committee started taking the Best Comedy Album category seriously and start incorporating the many stand-up albums that are put out each year into its nomination process. Only half of the nominated albums this year were actual stand-up albums.

UPDATE 11 pm EST:

So, thanks to our astute, speedy readers, we’ve been informed that the Colbert “soundtrack” was released on iTunes. However, we still have a moral issue with it. We’re sure releasing audio from a television special on iTunes fits in with the Grammy’s definition of what an “album” is. But in the end, what we’re talking about is under 26 minutes of audio taken from a project that was produced to be on television and sold as a DVD for consumers to watch.

That it was released quietly on iTunes — like we said, you can’t even buy it from the Comedy Central site, the people that put it out — and that was enough to get it nominated for a Best Album Grammy, shows a lot of indifference to the stand-up comedians who worked to put together an hour of original material meant for a true comedy album. And yes, Oswalt and Lopez both released DVD versions of their albums– Oswalt’s was just a bonus to his album. But both albums are widely and commercially available– they’re not just parts of larger projects with no tangible life of their own.

Anyway, it seems most people could care less, instead, turning their attention to the fact that Colbert whipped out an iPad onstage. See below.

This Sunday, the Grammys are going down in Los Angeles. As you probably know there’s an oft-ignored category for Best Comedy Album. You also probably know, that the Grammy peeps almost always ignore the dozens of great stand-up albums put out each year. Here’s a list of 9 they ignored this year, not counting Patton Oswalt’s My Weakness is Strong, which, by the grace of the comedy gods, was, in fact nominated.

But since Patton is up against mainstream comedy hams Kathy Griffin and George Lopez – he was nominated based on a vinyl release of his album (loop hole?); the real CD and digital version wasn’t even released when the nominations were announced – the trailblazing, incredibly talented comic doesn’t have a prayer.

On last night’s Lopez Tonight, George’s chat show on TBS, he and Griffin did one of those sassy back-and-forths about who’s going to win the Grammy. Check it out. Warning: Extra sassy!

The Grammys air on CBS, starting at 8 pm EST, if you want to torture yourself.

Patton Oswalt will make his Broadway debut in a revival of Terrence McNally play Lips Together, Teeth Apart. The New York Times, just minutes ago reported this:

On Tuesday, publicists for the revival said that Mr. Oswalt (who has recently gotten good notices for his performance in the film “Big Fan”) would star alongside Megan Mullally (of “Will & Grace” and Broadway’s “Young Frankenstein”) in the play about two couples who spend a revealing Fourth of July weekend on Fire Island. Mr. Oswalt will play Sam Truman, a role portrayed by Nathan Lane in the play’s 1991 production for Manhattan Theater Club, and Ms. Mullally will play Chloe Haddock, who was then played by Christine Baranski.

The play will debut April 29, with previews beginning April 9.

I can’t tell you how much I love Pandora. For the uninitiated, Pandora is a music service in which you identify a song or artist that you like and then Pandora will create a radio station based on elements found in that song or artist’s oeuvre. You then get to give those songs a thumbs up or thumbs down, further refining Pandora’s understanding of your taste.

See when you say you love Pandora it’s not just saying you like the service, it’s affirming a specific worldview, one that embraces the idea of objective core, structural musical attributes which can be picked out (by a team of musicologists) to discover other music you might like. Other internet radio stations like LastFM or Slacker use a “people who like this also gave this a high rating” system, and therefore fall prey to popularity contests and genrelock, (refusing to listen to certain music based solely on the genre of the artist).

But Pandora can surprise you by saying “Hey not only do you like RadioHead and Green Day, but guess what, based on what you’ve thumbed up, you also like Wheetus and Celine Dion. I am so so Sorry” (Pandora doesn’t say this last part explicitly, but it’s implied).

My only problem with Pandora? Unlike Slacker and LastFM, it has no Comedy. Now I don’t have the time, energy, or inclination to get an MA in Physics like my father or a PHD in Linguistics like my mother (overachieving jerks), but I do like to think of myself as a scientist at heart. What I’m saying is, I’m a lazy dork. But I’m a lazy dork who loves comedy and has a bachelors in Philosophy, so I decided put my pointlessly expensive brain to use and put together my own list of comedic attributes that I think should form the basis of a Pandora-like service for comedy tracks. Check out that list after the jump.

Some of these are geared at artists, some would be better applied to specific tracks. Right now it’s geared for stand-up, but it’s not hard to see how this could be expanded to account for sketch and other forms of audio comedy. Comedy listeners are just as susceptible to popularity contests and getting genrelocked, but if you like Bill Hicks and George Carlin, then dammit you should listen to Ron White too. Even if you resolutely refuse to listen to Blue collar comedy, if you like those guys, you’re gonna think he’s funny, I don’t care who you are.

After the jump is also a suggested breakdown for Patton Oswalt. Do you agree? Disagree? What aspects am I missing from the original list, and what aspects did I get wrong specifically for Oswalt?

Read the rest of this entry »

This album should win, but it won't, because the world is a horrible place.

Hey, comedy fans. It’s that time of the year again when powerful people somewhere nominate artists for Grammy awards, most of which, as we all know, are musicians. But there is the lowly, oft over-looked Best Comedy Album category.

Most years, the nominations in this category simply serve us as a reminder that the Grammy board knows and cares very little about the art of stand-up comedy. Yes, we said it. So, without further exposition, here are the comedy nods for this year.

• Back From The Dead
  Spinal Tap
  [The Label Industry/Artist2Market Distribution]
• A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift Of All!
  Stephen Colbert
  [Comedy Central Records]
• Internet Leaks
  “Weird Al” Yankovic
  [Volcano]
• My Weakness Is Strong
  Patton Oswalt
  [Degenerate/Warner Bros.]
• Suckin’ It For The Holidays
  Kathy Griffin
  [Music With A Twist]
• Tall, Dark & Chicano
  George Lopez
  [Comedy Central Records]

The awards ceremony will be aired live on CBS from the Staples Center in Los Angeles at 8 pm EST on Jan. 31. But we’re pretty sure they won’t be airing the comedy category. So it’s probably not worth watching, unless you want to see Katy Perry present an award in some breast-baring outfit or Linkin Park give a shout out to their mook fans. We’ll just let you know who wins. Unfortunately, it’s probably not going to be Patton Oswalt.

Christmas is surely a magical time that attracts the child in all of us. But everyone knows comedians and hardcore comedy fans are a cynical bunch. That’s why it’s refreshing to have this, Patton Oswalt’s take on a Christmas classic. It’s sure to make you feel all warm and fuzzy, if not feeling warm and fussy is what makes you feel warm and fuzzy. Have fun!

Have you ever seen one of those comics who tells really long stories, that might have been funny when they happened, but don’t really go anywhere onstage? Those people should see Patton Oswalt. Over the years, the short (look how tiny he looks in that not-so-great pic to the right), nerderrific comic has established himself as one of comedy’s great storytellers, and he was in top form this past Saturday at New York’s Town Hall.

The show was part of the New York Comedy Festival, and arguably the most anticipated show of a weekend full of top notch lineups. This was my first time seeing him in person. The venue was filled with a mix of casual festival-goers and die hard Patton fans who were getting their first East Coast fix in a long while. After all, the man’s been busy raising his first kid, acting in movies and doing high profile voice over work (Ratatouille, anyone?).

Oswalt talked about everything from fatherhood (and how it makes you wear sweatpants) to a stained hotel massage chair (“someone had to have jerked off on it”), to assuring his wife she hadn’t seen a rat in their yard, only to see it gruesomely mauled by a giant hawk during a backyard barbecue. Another highlight came during the encore, when he told the story of seeing Jerry Maguire with his brother on Christmas Eve when they were both drunk, and his brother shouting an obscenity at the screen during the movie’s most touching moment. It was a perfect example of how to take a funny, true story and present it in a way that’s rewarding for an audience, rather than being self indulgent. His bits were long with huge payoffs.

Morgan Murphy and Brent Weinbach did formidable opening sets. Murphy also brought Oswalt water half way through his set – I thought they had other people to do that! That was Oswalt’s last East Coast show for a while, but be sure to check out his most recent album, My Weakness Is Strong, by clicking on the image below.

One of the great things about stand-up comedy is that, unlike television and movie stars, a great stand-up is rarely judged on their appearance. No doubt, it doesn’t hurt to be attractive to the masses even as a comic, but you can’t point out too many instances of “he or she is incredibly attractive and that’s why they’re famous” in the world of stand-up comedy. To put it succinctly, there’s not too many Megan Foxes or Keanus of comedy. And before you cynical sillies invoke Dane Cook’s name to disprove this theory, remember this: Cook busted his ass for more than 15 years before he became a star.

Hearing about people watching the Emmys last week — I’m sure I was busy watching Lord of the Rings for the 43rd time — and seeing Sarah Silverman on the red carpet (she was up for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for The Sarah Silverman Program) just got me thinking about how it seems, now more than ever, our best stand-ups are starting to mingle in mainstream circles. Tom Papa and Paul F. Tompkins were just in The Informant! with Matt Damon; Patton Oswalt is the star of the critically acclaimed drama Big Fan, Joel McHale stars in NBC’s Community and Louis CK just walked the red carpet for that new Jennifer Garner flick The Invention of Lying (written and directed by comedian Ricky Gervais), which he’s in.

My point is this: I love that Sarah Silverman gets interviewed on the red carpet now. But I also love that she so clearly doesn’t fit in with the rest of the Hollywood “elite.” And that’s a good thing. The day after the Emmys she Tweeted this: ”Why didn’t anyone stop me? This is why I hate fancypantsiness. I’m not good at it OKAY?” Watch the video below, and tell us what you think. Can Sarah pull off “fancypantsiness?”

If you haven’t yet checked out Marc Maron’s new twice-a-week podcast WTF, you’re missing out. You’ve got another chance today, as episode three has just gone live. And because we here at Punchline Magazine like to spread the word on anything we deem important and entertaining in the world of stand-up comedy, we’ll be reminding you about each new episode as they post.

On today’s WTF, Marc talks with Patton Oswalt about his starring role in the drama Big Fan. Marc also has an educational chat with “Lawton Smalls” (aka Kent Jones), who you may remember if you were a fan of Maron’s Air America show Morning Sedition. Ok. Enough exposition. Check out the show here.

It’s been a while since we’ve given anything away. But we’re darn sure ready to do it today, this lovely summer Friday. We are greatly pleased to announce that we’re giving away Patton Oswalt’s new release My Weakness is Strong– two DVD copies and two CD copies. The official release on Degenerate/Warner Bros. Records happens this Tuesday and you can check out the Comedy Central version of the special when it premieres Sunday, Aug. 23 at 10 pm EST.

For now, however, simply email us at contest@punchlinemagazine.com with the subject line PATTON and tell us your full name and mailing address and if you’d prefer the DVD or CD. The first four readers to email, will win. Also, you have to be OK with Punchline Magazine printing your name and your town. If you’ve won anything from us in the last six months, you’re not eligible. That’s it. Good luck!

UPDATE: 5:50 pm EST:

The winners are Shannon Albert from North Richland Hills, TX, J.D. Felip from Santa Fe, NM, Allen Williams from Los Angeles, CA and Johnny Hugel from Richmond, VA. Congrats, all! And thanks to everyone else who emailed. Obviously, there’s a lot of Patton Oswalt fans out there.