Tuesday stand-up video: Pat Dixon

by Dylan P. Gadino

Joining a cult may seem like bad idea… until you learn about all the perks. Comedian Pat Dixon lets you in on a secret. Check it out.

Chris Rock returns to HBO with new stand-up special

by Dylan P. Gadino

Chris Rock will return to HBO with a new stand-up special this year. The 90-minute show, Chris Rock: Kill the Messenger will premiere Sept. 27 and will feature live footage from performances in South Africa, New York and London.
From BlackVoices.com:
I wanted to do the type of stand-up special that I’ve never seen before, and the [...]

Comedy club owner wants to fine Jesse Jackson for using n-word

by Dylan P. Gadino

When Michael Richards caused a national stir by using the N-word at his LA’s Laugh FActory, club owner James Masada joined the Reverend Jesse Jackson in condemning the incident. Masada instituted a $50 fine for any time the word was used on his stage.
Now that Jackson has been caught on tape using the same [...]

Monday stand-up video: Jessi Campbell

by Dylan P. Gadino

Comedian Jessi Campbell has an odd, but effective way to deal with hand dryer hogs at pubic bathrooms. Check it out.

Christopher Titus: Norman Rockwell is Bleeding

by Dylan P. Gadino

A hero of American dysfunction, comedian Christopher Titus has given broken families and their broken dreams an artistic voice in a mass appeal way for nearly a decade.

To those not completely familiar with his rather colorful upbringing, here’s the beginning: Titus was raised in California by a gruff, hard-drinking (but by most accounts, well-meaning) father and a bipolar/schizophrenic mother – with a 185 IQ – who killed one of her husbands in self-defense.

In 2000, the comic premiered his Fox sitcom, Titus, based around his life but more specifically around the stand-up material in Norman Rockwell Is Bleeding, the one-man show Titus had brought to Montreal’s Just for Laughs festival that same year; the show would later be recorded and aired on Showtime and then on Comedy Central.

Four years after its original televised broadcast, the latter cable giant has just released a two-disc set of the 90-minute performance, which proves not to be a study in topical humor – the fact that the material is at least 10 years old doesn’t matter – but a study in what (besides a series of laugh-inducing bits) stand-up comedy can be. That is, timeless reflections on family foibles, introspection of one’s own ill-conceived life choices and pain. Lots of pain.

That Titus is able to seamlessly bare publicly what most people would discuss only in therapy — some topics include his years-long abusive relationship with a woman who would later become his wife, his mother being institutionalized, his dad being arrested on live television for drunken-driving — and still generate a constant stream of sturdy laughs from a crowd that, as a whole, couldn’t possibly relate to the same degree of familial madness, is, in part, a tribute to the comedian’s deft understanding of the human psyche.

It’s also a nod to Titus’ theatrical treatment of themes that in the hands of an ill-skilled comic would do little more than send the crowd home early with chills and wondering why, in God’s name, they just hadn’t instead made it a Blockbuster night. The smarter folks in the crowd -– or perhaps the more insane -– know better, however, to ride Titus’ crazy train to the end.

Tuesday stand-up video: Pat Dixon

by Punchline Magazine

Joining a cult may seem like bad idea… until you learn about all the perks. Comedian Pat Dixon lets you in on a secret. Check it out.

Chris Rock returns to HBO with new stand-up special

by Punchline Magazine

Chris Rock will return to HBO with a new stand-up special this year. The 90-minute show, Chris Rock: Kill the Messenger will premiere Sept. 27 and will feature live footage from performances in South Africa, New York and London.
From BlackVoices.com:
I wanted to do the type of stand-up special that I’ve never seen before, and the [...]