Comic to Watch in 2010: Moshe Kasher

by Dylan P. Gadino

We recently introduced you to  New York’s Myq Kaplan, a comic to watch in 2010. From the opposite coast, comes another must-see comedian in 2010. His name is Moshe Kasher. And he is funny. Check it out.

Before this summer, I had never heard of Los Angeles based comedian Moshe Kasher. And after I had heard about him while attending Rooftop Comedy’s Aspen comedy festival, I have to admit, it was hard to remember his name; it’s not really the type that rolls off your tongue.

After seeing him perform, however, during the fest’s Best and Brightest show, I found it a lot harder to forget him. And now, I’m confident in saying he is one of the most important comics you need to watch out for in 2010. Here’s what I wrote in Aspen after seeing him live for the first time:

“I was immediately drawn in. His appearance, no doubt, helps; he’s a slight, pale guy with jet-black hair (he calls the style the Gitler, “the gay Hitler”) and sports large-framed glasses and a less-than-masculine interpretation of what a dude is. The Los Angeles-based performer has a powerful comedic voice and amazingly wide range. He seamlessly shifts from traditional blue humor to heady material that finds Dante’s Inferno the subject of a joke; he also does moderate physical humor, poking fun at himself for owning a thicket of hair on his forearm and none on his bicep, not to mention an oddly bendable wrist that, he jokes, he sometimes tucks in his shirt, exposing what looks like a nub, to make strangers feel bad for him. Watching Kasher try to tie his shows with said nub makes for a cheap laugh, but it’s funny nonetheless.”

By the end of the weekend, Kasher was voted Best of the Fest by the Aspen audience. Check out a few minutes of Kasher from the festival.

At the festival, Moshe hand-delivered me a copy of his debut album, Everyone You Know Is Going to Die, And Then You Are. I took it home and immediately fell in love with it. Our review of the album is here. Writer John Delery, wrote: “Occasionally on this release from Rooftop Comedy Productions, Kasher digresses from the typical comic’s checklist and humorously but pointedly raises issues with haters and homophobes. Without the superciliousness of Keith Olbermann or the fury of Bill, no, make that Bilious O’Reilly, Kasher transforms himself from an inventive goofball into a diverting social commentator.” Check out one of his spoken-word pieces from his album below.

A few weeks later I was in Montreal covering the Just For Laughs comedy festival, arguably the most important annual comedy gathering in the world. Turns out Kasher was invited to perform at the New Faces show, wherein up and coming comics from all over the world show us why it’s worth paying attention to them. Kasher, again, blew me away.

In August, I decided to check out a Live at Gotham filming in New York; I mostly wanted to see Doug Benson host. I had no idea who else was on the bill. But Kasher was there again to film a spot on the popular Comedy Central show. I had seen Kasher perform three straight months in three different cities and two countries.

And just a few weeks ago, iTunes named Kasher as the Best New Comic of 2009, further solidifying the idea that I’m not the only one who sees good things coming from Kasher in 2010. Check out more Kasher info at his official site moshekasher.com; his upcoming tour dates are below.

Buy Moshe’s album by clicking the image below!

Confessions of a joke stealer: One comic’s story

by Jeff Nichols

[Editor's note] This past summer comedian Jeff Nichols released his memoir: Trainwreck: My Life as an Idoit for Simon and Schuster. Nichols grew up in Manhattan surrounded by fairly traditional family and friends. But having dyslexia, a speech impediment and the tiniest amount of Tourette’s made it difficult for Jeff to grow up completely normal. The book is a highly entertaining and enlightening read throughout, but there’s one chapter in particular that we thought Punchline Magazine readers would find especially intriguing: Confessions of a Hack Comic: The Anatomy of a Thief.

As he was trying to be a comedian in New York in the 1990s and eventually hitting the road to make real money — where being a complete hack was a lot easier to get away with — he admits he became a world-class joke thief, saying, “I constantly stole material and it had begun to wear me down. It had no longer been a means to an end; it was the end.” We should mention, also, that Jeff told Punchline Magazine that he’ll be on the road doing stand-up and trying to drop his evil ways. Below, is a portion of the aforementioned chapter.

——————

I didn’t start out as a thief. Actually, I was one of those guys you would see frantically scribbling ideas on yellow legal pads on the bus, subway, or park bench. I would bounce premises off anyone I met. I immersed myself in the open-mike circuit. All my time was spent with comics in diners or on the phone developing bits. I took workshops and comedy classes at NYU. I constantly had my hand inside one of one those yellow Gotham City bins with “comedy workshop” boldly printed on them that used to clutter Manhattan sidewalks.

Ironically, I always got accolades on how original my stuff was. I believed (and still do) that I had a point of view and the persona and delivery to carry it out. Perhaps if I stayed in NYC things would have ended up differently. I was quick to find out that on the road (where comics get paid real money) the audience was not into my pithy, wired, neurotic subjective humor. In Biloxi, Miss., they want to laugh and they want to laugh hard. And if you can’t do the job, there are thousands of comics that can.

After only a few short weeks on the road, I realized that other people’s bits seemed to work better than mine. Remember that joke of mine? “My S.A.T.’s were so low that my entire school district lost funding.” Not bad. But “Jammin’ Jim” Florentine had a joke that went: “I loved the S.A.T, I did great on that test; it was the only test I ever got a one hundred on!” Now my joke had its qualities, but it lacked the pedestrian appeal of Jammin’ Jim’s joke. So I started to use his bit rather than my own.

Between comics there is an unspoken rule: what is said in Plattsburg stays in Plattsburg. Whatever you do, don’t get caught stealing in Manhattan. I did, twice. The first time it was at a prom show at Stand-up New York. The kids were digging me, so I let loose Jammin’ Jim’s S.A.T bit. The young crowed loved it. I got off stage and looked at the list of comics to follow me, and three comics down was Jammin’ Jim. Holy shit! What to do? Should I be a man, and approach Jim and tell him what I had done, saving him embarrassment and rage.

Or, since I had not heard him do comedy for a few years, should I hope that he developed new material and didn’t do the S.A.T. any more? (Fat chance.) Avoiding confrontation has always been a character defect of mine. So I let Jammin’ Jim take the stage and kept my fingers crossed. It was his second joke. Not only did the audience not laugh, but they booed him. I ran out of the club as Jim was questioning the audience why they didn’t like the bit. The audience was more than willing to furnish him with an answer.

From TRAINWRECK by Jeff Nichols. Copyright 2007, 2009 by Jeff Nichols. Reprinted by permission of Touchstone, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

You can find more about the author at jeff-nichols.com. Check out the rest of the chapter and the entire book. Click the image below and snag yourself a copy.

Bobby Lee: ‘You have to see a naked Asian man’

by Emma Kat Richardson

Comedian Bobby Lee made a huge name for himself playing hilariously stereotypical Asian characters — and, the occasional woman — on Fox’s recently defunct MadTV. Before and during he was a stand-up; and he’s pledged to make this year all about the stage. He kicks off in style at world famous Carolines in New York.

Bobby Lee is a busy man. In fact, the only human to perhaps surpass Lee in terms of schedule overcrowding is the more recognizable of the two souls currently sharing occupancy of the West Wing.

When he telephones me for this interview – promptly, a solid three minutes ahead of schedule – the affable comic and perhaps MadTV’s most high-profile star is attempting to juggle several other commitments, in addition to our scheduled chat. He sounds weary and out of breath, and it’s no wonder, considering that he’s spent the past few years guesting on a series of sitcoms, appearing in big screen smashes like Pineapple Express, pounding away at his stand-up career, and pulling MadTV’s political weight by portraying John McCain.

Getting set to close out the first decade of the millennium with a string of New Years stand-up performances from Dec. 31 to Jan. 3 at New York’s Carolines on Broadway, Lee checks in with Punchline Magazine to discuss New Years resolutions, the evolution of comedy, and why portraying McCain was so inappropriate.

If you weren’t doing comedy, how would you be paying the bills?
Oh, man. Um… probably, I’d be a koi fish farmer. Or, I would work at some weird Korean spa. I love Korean spas, and I’ve always wanted to work at one. When I’m at a Korean spa and I see naked Korean men, it doesn’t make me feel bad about myself. I feel like I’m more toned and better-looking. So that’s what I’d do – I’d either work in a Korean, male spa, or I’d be a koi fish farmer.

Do you think those occupations would be as fruitful as your comedy career is?
Well, yeah. I mean, I dunno, man. It’s how life is, you know? Sometimes, I feel like I’m on top of the world, and sometimes I feel like I’m a piece of shit, you know? That’s life, right. If I was a koi fish farmer, I might feel great about it one day, but then be like, “Fuck the koi fish” the next day.

Not literally, I hope.
Nah, I don’t have sex with koi fish. Or any animal. Oh, maybe a dolphin.

You started doing stand-up long before you joined the cast of MadTV. Was there something in particular that made you want to give sketch comedy a try?
Oh, no. I never even thought that I’d do sketch comedy. I started doing stand-up in, like, ’96, and I just thought that that’s what I’d be doing. But it’s like anything; things just come up, and I had the opportunity to audition [for MadTV], so I said, “Well, I might as well try.” And I got it. So, it wasn’t something that I hadn’t planned.

The first couple of years on the show I wasn’t really that great – I’d never taken any acting classes or anything – so I just had to kind of learn how to do it. If you watch the show from the first couple of years, you see that I wasn’t really on it, because I was still trying to figure it all out. I think I got really lucky, is all. It’s not really luck, though, because when you take a risk in life, other doors open, you know? I did stand-up, and then MadTV, and MadTV led to little parts in film, and then who knows what’ll also happen? Maybe I’ll never work again and become something else, you know?

Do you think you prefer sketch or stand-up, now that you’ve done both?
Um… I don’t really prefer any of them, really. If my dad was a billionaire, I’d probably just be that guy, you know what I mean? But out of all the jobs out there, stand-up is the only job I’d want to do. But sometimes, I don’t like doing it – I just have to make a living.

How do you think that you as a comedian have evolved and developed since you first took up stand-up?
I don’t know. I mean, I feel far more comfortable onstage, and I have so much farther to go. I watch my peers, and I watch them and go, “Wow, I’m not that funny.” Like, I watch Bill Burr and I feel how real he is, and that’s the direction I want to take but it’s so hard to do that. Because I started doing comedy under the tutelage of Pauly Shore, and it fucked me up, you know? You watch him do it, and… it’s not that it’s bad, but you’re just like, wow, this is a whole different thing. I kind of now want to go in a different direction. It’s just so hard to unlearn that, you know what I mean?

When I was on Mad, I didn’t really do stand-up at all. I was like, “Oh, I’m going to be a movie star.” That’s what I thought, and when Mad was done, kind of like nothing was happening, so I just decided that, you know what? I never really gave stand-up a chance. For the past year, I’ve been on the road, and just kind of focusing on that.

When I get on the road, people will come out to see me for some reason. Crowds would come out and they’d be like, “Yeah, we enjoy what you do,” and I was just like, “How do I reach the people?” I wanted to connect with people that liked me. It’s from the love of doing [stand-up].

So it was that audience connection that really brought it all back for you?
Yeah! And you know, it’s also that I just realized that whatever is in front of me, I’m going to do it one hundred percent. That’s what I’ve learned this year, you know? I’m giving it one hundred percent.

What do you do personally to overcome some of the racial stereotyping in Hollywood?
I’m actually the opposite of that. I honestly believe that [stereotyping] is better for us. I’ll give you an example: in March, I did a pilot, and it was like a Friends-type of show. It was written for six white people, and what happened was they were casting it, and at the end of the casting they basically said, “We can’t have six white people.” So NBC basically said to the producers that one of the characters would have to be a minority, and they called me. I read for the producers, got it, then went to Chicago and shot it.

It didn’t get picked up, but those kinds of things are helping ethnic people. I don’t know if that’s right or wrong; I just think that 15 years earlier, they never would have done that. It would have been like, “Well, this is the way we wrote it,” and now, it’s sort of like mandatory [to include minority characters].

Jokes.com
Bobby Lee – Being Asian
comedians.comedycentral.com

Where do you think the change has come from?
I think it goes down to advertising. When you see advertisements now, there are a lot of ethnic people in them, you know what I mean? And I think it’s because television shows exist based on advertisements, and advertisers realize that ethnic people consume their product. They have to represent those people, and so now it’s a part of the machine.

How did you end up landing the John McCain role on MadTV?
That was like a nightmare. When all that [election] stuff went down, Fox was like, “You’ve got to play John McCain,” but I thought it was wrong, for me to play him, because he was captured by people that look like me. You know what I mean? It’s weird, and I fought it all along, but they made me do it, contractually. It wasn’t something I wanted to do – I don’t even think I did a good job, but I just did it anyway, because it’s my job to do it. So that’s how that came down. I think the reason they just had me do it was because they thought it would be funny; but I saw it more as being wrong.

Did you do anything in specific to prepare for that role?
No, no. I didn’t do anything! I literally just did it, you know what I mean? It was all part of a rebellious thing.

Since the first decade of the new millennium is drawing to a close, do you think the past 10 years have been good for comedy?
I think 10 years ago that it was dead. I think it’s coming back. When I started in the ‘90s, people called [stand-up] the “death period.” In the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, that’s when television was saturated by stand-up comedy. Clubs started shutting down because people weren’t coming out to the clubs. When the clubs shut down and they stopped airing stand-up on television, it was just a bad time for stand-up. You had a limited amount of places to perform, and you had as many comedians. You have all these guys like Dane Cook, Nick Swardson, and Zach Galifianakis who started then, and they had to fight harder to survive. Right now, I think we’re a product of that time period.

What do you think that you in specific have brought to this changing landscape?
I don’t know that I’ve necessarily brought things. I think that the one thing I have done is, being an Asian American guy, I’ve felt like I can do sketch on television and be the first Asian American to do it. People on the road, and my family and my friends, legitimately think I’m funny. I don’t think I got on MadTV because I’m Asian; I think it was because I was funny, and it was the perfect time.

Margaret Cho kind of opened it up for the rest of us, in terms of stand-up, but I think I opened it up in terms of sketch, maybe. I think with networks now, [a minority presence] is a given. It was different, 10 years ago when I got that – I auditioned 12 times [for MadTV], over a period of three months. I feel so proud that I did that, but now the doors are open and all kinds of people are coming through. It’s exciting.

How do you expect the comedy scene to change and evolve over the next coming decade?
I think you’re going to see different kinds of people doing it. I think that’s a good thing; like, in the ‘80s, you had a lot of Jewish guys doing a lot of observational comedy, and they were all kinda bland, you know? You had those cookie-cutter comics, but now I think it’s a whole different generation of people. I think it’s reflecting a different time in America.

Jokes.com
Bobby Lee – Wrestling
comedians.comedycentral.com

What are some of your New Years resolutions for 2010?
Well, I’ve been doing so much lately, so I kind of want to be a better son, and a better friend.

Are there any resolutions you made last year that you wish you had kept?
I’ve never made resolutions before this.

What makes New Years Eve with Bobby Lee more exciting than any other event going on in the city?
Because you’ve never seen a naked Asian guy before. It’s just something you need to do.

Get your tickets to Bobby Lee’s performances at Carolines in NYC here. And check out more info on Bobby, here.

Anjelah Johnson: On the comedy fast track

by Emma Kat Richardson

Five years in the stand-up game and she already has a one-hour Comedy Central special set to premiere– not to mention roles in three new major movies? Anjelah Johnson has arrived fashionably early.

She used to be a cheerleader for the Oakland Raiders, but unlike her previous employers, Anjelah Johnson is on a major winning streak. Making the transition from professional cheerleading to telling jokes is logical, Johnson even explains, once you mention that you used to pay the bills by cheering on the Raiders.

Good-natured swipes at the NFL aside, Johnson the comedian, as of late, has found herself at the 50-yard line of stand-up comedy’s mainstream scene; last year she was even chosen by Entertainment Weekly as one of 12 “rising stars of comedy,” after she became a YouTube sensation, garnering millions of views of her stand-up. After discovering her stand-up chops quite by accident, the mixed heritage beauty (Johnson is of both Hispanic and Native American descent) underwent a stint as a regular on MadTV, and has been conjuring up audiences from all over the nation with a much-needed does of good, clean comedy.

You can hear her voice in Alvin and Chipmunks: The Squeaqkuel (in theaters now) and then early next year in the movies Our Family Wedding, (out in March) and the animated Marmaduke, starring William H. Macy and Owen Wilson (out in June). But on Dec., 28 Johnson’s first hour-long comedy special, That’s How We Do It will debut on Comedy Central, which will more than likely have Johnson finding herself on the other side of cheers.

Since you have a background that revolves around a lot of entertainment mediums in general, what in specific drew you to stand-up comedy?
What drew me to stand-up comedy… well, actually, I just took a stand-up class just for fun – someone had wanted me to take it – and at the end of the class, we had to perform in a real comedy club. It was something that just came so naturally to me that it would have felt wrong not to pursue it. That was kind of what drove me to do stand-up; even after I did the class and performed, I still wasn’t doing stand-up hardcore. I’d do a coffee shop once a month, or an open mic here and there. It was kind of like a fluke, actually.

Why did it feel natural to you?
I think it had to do with the things that I was writing and getting an instant reaction from people. In the class, everybody wrote material, we learned different techniques, and everybody did five minutes of material, except for me: I actually did 12 minutes of material my first time doing stand-up comedy, and the instructor let me do all the material I wrote. It showed me that the things I was writing were actually coming across as funny, you know.

So it wasn’t really something you had considered before you took that class?
No, never. Not at all. It’s funny, because growing up, I wasn’t… I didn’t watch Comedy Central all day long, or dream of being a stand-up comedian. The kind of comedy I do is more cleaner comedy and observational comedy. I actually started watching BET’s Comic View, which is not really the direct kind of comedy that I present, but that’s what made me laugh. Even watching that, I never ever thought of myself as being a comedian one day. I moved to LA to pursue acting, and I loved George Lopez and Ellen DeGeneres; I’d listen to their CDs, and even as I would listen, I never thought of myself as doing stand-up comedy, ever.

Then what inspired you to take that class?
I was in an improv troop, and the instructor of that class actually saw me in the improv troop and asked me if I wanted to take her class. It was free, so I said, “If it’s free, I’ll do it.”

Does your former career with cheerleading play any sort of role in your comedy?
Yeah, I guess so. I mean, people always ask me how you go from being a professional cheerleader to a stand-up comic. I just tell them that it’s kind of an easy transition to telling jokes when you cheer for the Raiders.

It actually took me a while before I even mentioned the Raiders in my stand-up comedy, because if you don’t look funny and are overweight or anything, people automatically judge you and be like, “Oh, you’re not going to be funny.” So I just figured that, for myself, what I look like already is a wall for me to have to break down, and to even talk about being a professional cheerleader, I didn’t know how to bring that up to audiences without them just getting stuck on that. It was just recently in the past couple of years that I figured out a way to talk about being a professional cheerleader and make it funny without detracting, and it’s actually some of my favorite material that I do now.

Jokes.com
Anjelah Johnson – Last Name
comedians.comedycentral.com

It’s interesting that you bring up the idea of your being a cheerleader as a hindrance to your comedic success. Do you think that image-based career decisions for female stand-ups can help or hurt their success? I’m thinking of Chelsea Handler’s recent Playboy cover.
I think it’s different for everybody. We have different kinds of material: she talks about different things than from what I talk about, and the way that she presents herself [is different], but I think it goes along with whatever she’s doing. For me, that wouldn’t work for me because of the kind of audience and following that I have, you know what I mean? So something like that wouldn’t necessarily work for me as it would for her.

Why’s that?
Chelsea Handler is more edgy in her material, and just kind of out there in the stuff she talks about – from her book about one night-stands, and things like that. [Posing for Playboy] seems like something that goes along with what she talks about and coincides with what she does, whereas my comedy is more observational, like about getting my nails done or about how my dad used to spank me, and how we grew up kinda poor. If all of the sudden I was in Playboy, it would be like, “Wait! Hold on.”

Speaking of your comedic voice, where does it come from? What are its origins?
I don’t really know. My whole family is really funny. My dad is funny – he’s definitely quick witted. My grandpa – I think I definitely get it from my dad, my grandpa, that whole line of funny that my grandpa’s always doing. Even so, my mom is goofy and just silly, so are my brothers and sisters. None of us care what we look like. I’ve always been comfortable in that, and I always knew that I could make my family and my own friends laugh, but it was being able to make other people’s friends and family laugh by just being myself – that was what was surprising to me.

Where do you see yourself fitting in with the larger picture of the current comedy landscape?
Where do I see myself fitting in? I think I’ve actually managed to pave my own way into doing things totally differently, so I don’t know how exactly I fit in, or maybe it’s something totally different. Especially with the age of YouTube and things like that, people are doing things different nowadays, as opposed to these big headliners who have been doing this for years; they’ve really just been touring forever, doing comedy clubs and colleges and things like that, and working their way up to this headlining place.

Whereas myself, I’ve only been doing comedy for five years, and I have my one-hour special coming out soon, and that’s something I couldn’t have have planned or dreamed of on my own, but it’s the way that things are working out for me. It’s the cards that I’ve been dealt. So, I don’t know exactly how I fit in to this mold that’s already there, or maybe it’s something new. I don’t know.

Jokes.com
Anjelah Johnson – Growing Up Poor
comedians.comedycentral.com

Is there anything you think you bring to stand-up comedy that no one else does?
I guess just my point of view. No one else can have my point of view but me. Everybody has parallel thinking and it’s almost like every topic has been talked about – sure, other comics have done jokes about getting spanked by their dad, or even getting their nails done. All these topics have been talked about, but nobody has my point of view or perspective: I don’t have Ellen DeGeneres’s point of view, or George Lopez’s, or Daniel Tosh’s. I don’t have anyone else’s point of view.

You’re of Hispanic and Native American descent. Do you, like other Hispanic comics, like to use ethnically based humor in your act, or do you find it to be abrasive?
I don’t find it abrasive at all. I definitely don’t categorize myself as a “Latin comic.” My set is not like, “Latin people: we’re like this!” I definitely talk about how I grew up, and the cultural things that pertain to me and my family. I make references like, “We’re Latinos, and we spank our kids”; that’s coming from a personal experience, where I’ve had an aunt spank me who wasn’t even my mom. I may generalize the Latin culture, but it always comes back to my personal story about it.

I like to play a lot with accents, and I’m very observational, so I do pick up on a lot of different cultures and ethnicities with accents. If I notice something, I’ll call it out, like with the nail salon or things like that. I try to bring out a lot of people’s cultures and lifestyles.

You’ve got a lot of movie projects on the horizon. Is there any one in particular that you think best exemplifies your comedy and your persona?
I definitely had so much fun working on the film Our Family Wedding. I think that’s what they chose – it’s been untitled for a while, and I just heard it’s being called Our Family Wedding. It’s with America Ferrera, Carlos Mencia, and lots of really talented people that I was so blessed to work with.

I play America’s sister, and I’m kinda like her tomboyish older sister, but we’re like a year apart so we’re very close friends and sisters. I think that actually resembles my actual life with my sister – we’re very close in age, I’m very tomboyish. A lot of times, the director would ask something of me, and it almost felt like cheating, because it came so naturally. I had so much fun with that, and it was great to play an exaggerated version of myself.

Can you give me a little preview on what viewers can expect from your upcoming Comedy Central special?
It’s basically a lot of my life story; the whole growing up stuff, to the Oakland Raiders stuff, me sneaking into nightclubs when I was younger, guys hitting on me and how I respond to that. I included some of my characters from MadTV, and it’s kind of like a recap of what got me to where I am right now, all smooshed into an hour.

Having done MadTV, improv, and stand-up, do you have a preference between sketch, improv, and stand-up?
They’re all fun and exhilarating in different ways. I guess I like stand-up because it’s my own material that I get to write and perform; the instant gratification of having someone laugh at something you’ve written is a really great feeling. Also, two, I feel that there’s more security in that, whereas in improv, it’s like, “Well, I’m going to try and say something, and hopefully it’s funny.”

It may not be, but with stand-up you know: you’ve tested and tried it, and if it’s your fourth show doing this joke, you know you’re going to get a really big laugh right now. Stand-up has a sense of security to it, and sketch is always funny and fun with your being able to get dressed up in wanting to be somebody else, with wigs and everything. They all have their own pros and cons.

Jokes.com
Anjelah Johnson – Butt Check-Out
comedians.comedycentral.com

That’s funny; I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard someone attribute the term “security” to stand-up.
It’s a vulnerable place to be: standing onstage by yourself with a microphone, and hundreds of people just watching you. But you really like having the confidence in the material that you’ve written, and just knowing that you are funny, and just also knowing that everybody in that room wants you to be funny. They’re on your team already – you know what I mean – so it’s like they’re rooting for you, just deliver. It’s not like they’re against you.

Have you ever had the requisite bombing experience?
I’ve never had like a moment where I wanted to just cry offstage, but I’ve noticed that any time I do a room where it’s all of one group of people – be it all black people, all Mexican people, all gay people, all straight people – if it’s all of one type of people, things don’t go well. It needs to be mixed, diverse, with cultures from everywhere, because I’ve noticed that people get a little uncomfortable when you start talking about something else that’s not pertaining to them.

One night, I did a show – it was like a Latin night show. This was when I was first starting out, and I never felt that I was Latin enough for the Latin crowd, so I had to put a little extra on it, because I didn’t really know yet who I was as a comedian. So I remember one night I was performing at a Latin night, and I was just totally putting extra on, and they could just see right through me, and it was like crickets the entire night. I was like, “…okay, thank you, goodnight!” I was aware of the mistake that I made, and I just couldn’t figure out how to fix it. (Which I’ve done now).

On your website, you say that your faith is very important to you. In what ways are you able to incorporate your religious beliefs into your comedy?
I poke fun at myself in every way, whether it’s about my culture, my life, my beliefs, and anything about it. I do some jokes about things that happen in the church, like gossiping; they talk about not gossiping in church, but there are some people that do like to disguise their gossiping as a prayer request, and just calling people out here and there.

It’s stuff that happens in real life, in church – there’s always going to be good and bad of everything, and I’m just not afraid to call those things out, as well as the good things. I don’t ever really preach from my pulpit, which is my microphone; I don’t ever preach my beliefs at anybody, but I’m not afraid to talk about it. Like, I was in church the other day, and the pastor said this, and this is what I thought about it. It’s like some kind of funny observation.

Have you ever been faced with a dilemma in the entertainment industry in which the business would have required you to do something that was in defiance to your faith?
Yeah, there have definitely been some auditions that have come about, where I’m full-on like no, I’m not going to do this. There have also been situations where I’m like kind of torn, and I don’t know. Unfortunately, I don’t have a handbook that says, “You can do this job where it says this, but not if it requires you to do this.”

Every situation is different, and everybody’s journey is different, so the way that I would approach material in an audition is different from the way that somebody else would. If I was playing this total evil villain, as long as it wasn’t being glorified as something good, and teaching people that yeah, be an evil villain, and your life will be great. That’s definitely not something I would stand for, but I would play an evil villain character if it was portrayed as that. This is the evil side that you don’t want to be.

Do you ever worry that wearing your beliefs so openly might make it harder for you to be accepted among the mainstream stand-up circuit?
You know, it’s not something that I’ve ever worried about, but I have been aware of it. I am aware of it, and I do know that everybody has different beliefs. People will make their own judgements of me and who they think that I am, and what they think that I think of them, but the people that really get to know me know that I’m not trying to judge anybody or judge myself, but just live life with everybody. We’re all here to just live life together, and I do things a little bit differently, you do things a little bit differently.

I’m aware that there might be some hindrances, that there might be some people who aren’t too accepting of me, and I definitely don’t downplay who I am, just like they shouldn’t downplay who they are. Being myself has gotten me to where I’m at right now, without compromise or without watering down who I am. I think it’s good for everybody to just know who you are and just stick to that.

What long-term goals do you have for your comedy career? Do you see stand-up as a foundational backbone for your TV and film career, where ever that ends up going?
I definitely want to just keep growing. I’m interested to see where my stand-up goes, like where it goes next. I’ve done material about my life growing up, and I’m sure there’s plenty more stories I could come up with, but I’m interested to see which area I start talking about next. What’s going to be the core point of view from where ever I go next, and then growing in that – I have no idea. I’ll just sit down and start writing, and we’ll see what happens.

I’m definitely interested in continuing to grow as a comedian – in my perspective, and my point of view, and the way I write, and the way I communicate with my audience. I’m always going to have stand-up, I feel. It may not be my touring every weekend, like a full-on touring comedian. I’m definitely going to be pursuing more film and television, which was my passion when I first moved to LA. Stand-up is always going to be a part of me, and it’s always going to be something that I do, and really something that I continue to grow at and better myself.

For more info, check out anjelahnicolejohnson.com.

The 10 best stand-up comedy DVDs of 2009

by Punchline Magazine

For the past few years, the release of stand-up CDs and DVDs seems to be more popular than ever. Sometimes a production company will release just a CD or just a DVD– sometimes they’re packaged together. The DVDs listed below fall under one of the last two categories. And although we, at Punchline Magazine, are bigger fans of the plain comedy album, sometimes, we admit, some material translates better on DVD. Here, in our opinion, are the 10 best stand-up comedy DVDs released in 2009. Please enjoy and let us know what your favorites of the year are in the comments section. (Be sure to check out our best albums of 2009 here).

#10 — DANA GOULD – LET ME PUT MY THOUGHTS IN YOU
Directed by comedy nerd god Bob Odenkirk, stand-up and comedy writing vet Dana Gould’s Let Me Put My Thoughts In You is a long-awaited concert film representation of one of the most well-respected names in comedy. Though for the last few years, Gould’s been making most of his living producing and writing for the likes of The Simpsons and Parks and Recreation, Thoughts proves Gould’s heart still lies in stand-up. Shot a bit differently than most stand-up DVDs, it invokes the feel of an 80s-era concert documentary (check out the stage décor), with fast camera pans, sudden zooms to highlight Gould’s vocal cadence and even a few shots of another camera’s view finder filming the show in real time. But most importantly Gould somehow manages to earnestly deliver bits indie comedy fans would knock – “Really, jokes about your wife making you run errands?” – and the absolutely absurd. His dedication to both is commendable and proves consistently funny throughout the show. Buy Dana Gould: Let Me Put My Thoughts In You

#9 — JIM BREUER – LET’S CLEAR THE AIR
Though Saturday Night Live alum Jim Breuer had been largely away from the stand-up comedy stage for the last six years, he came back strong this year, with Let’s Clear the Air, an hour special that’s equal parts funny and career statement. As the title implies, the DVD’s material focuses on the transition Breuer has made from stoner comic to family man; he even shows photos of his daughters throughout. And the structure of this stellar set mirrors his life; the first third pegs stories to his past, the second third is all about his family, which melts gracefully into what the future holds for comedian as the final installment of the concert. This is a must-buy for true Breuer fans or for anyone who likes their family humor with a slight edge. Buy Jim Breuer: Let’s Clear the Air

#8 — JIM GAFFIGAN – KING BABY
Jim Gaffigan has done it yet again: he’s produced an incredibly entertaining hour of material based largely around food and the concept of being lazy. Even when he seemingly veers off from food, like in his bit about deodorant, he injects bacon back in. But the fact is, when you have a delivery as uniquely funny as Gaffigan’s it’s likely that most any material is going to be well-received. His now famous “inner voice,” low, rich bellow and his constantly crinkled, pale face turns his already well-written material into something wholly quotable and worthy of repeated plays– just like everything else he’s released. Buy Jim Gaffigan: King Baby

Jokes.com
Jim Gaffigan – Most Beautiful Thing on Earth
comedians.comedycentral.com

#7 — DANE COOK – ISOLATED INCIDENT
After putting out back-to-back concert releases set in monster-sized arenas – Vicious Circle and Rough Around the Edges – Dane Cook decided to temporarily mute the rock star volume and put out something a bit more intimate. It worked to great effect. Cook’s Isolated Incident was shot at his home club – the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles – with nary a bell and whistle in site. A rarity in the stand-up concert film business, the final product was the result of one show with no cuts or edits. Challenging himself even more than he did on Rough, wherein we saw a darker, bluer Cook, Incident found Cook heavily lacing downright angry passages (in “Haters” he intelligently yet aggressively addresses those who live to knock him down) and deeply personal stories – namely about his parents dying of cancer within months of each other – between his energetic and hilariously graphic story telling style. This DVD further proves that, despite what the “haters” anonymously say online – forget the millions of fans, the motion pictures, the hype, all the preconceived notions – Cook is a skilled comic who’s constantly evolving. Buy Dane Cook: ISolated INcident

Jokes.com
Dane Cook – Internet Hate
comedians.comedycentral.com

#6 — JIMMY SHUBERT – ALIVE AND KICKIN’
Jimmy Shubert does not share the typical bleeding-heart point of view of most comedians. He wants to arm passengers on a plane to take out terrorists. And he doesn’t mind being completely insensitive to women—so long as he’s funny about it. And you know what? He’ll take his time poking fun at Siamese twins attached at the head. Shubert is old-school. He’s a lovable, hoarse-throated curmudgeon on hyper drive and Alive and Kickin’ finds him at his best. Although there’s a decent amount of older Shubert material on this collection, it serves as the perfect primer for the uninitiated and the perfect all-in-one collection – it comes with an audio version so you can drop it on your iPod – for the dedicated Shubert fan. Also be sure to check out the well-produced short film at the start of the DVD; it features comedians Gary Valentine, Billy Gardell and Joey Diaz. Buy Alive & Kickin’ (DVD with CD)

#5 — MITCH FATEL – MITCH FATEL IS MAGICAL
Although Mitch Fatel has released two highly popular albums throughout his career, Mitch Fatel is Magical marks his first one-hour special – aired first on Comedy Central – and subsequent DVD release. If you know one thing about Mitch it’s this: he’s dirty. But he does it in such a way (like a precocious boy) wherein after hearing an hour of vagina talk, you may not even realize the extent of how x-rated the show you just saw actually was. To enjoy Fatel, it helps to have a one track mind or at least have access to a one-track mind; otherwise the extended monologues on inverted nipples, orgies and hand jobs are going to be lost on you. Lucky for us, we’re happy living through Fatel’s twisted mind. Buy Mitch Fatel: Mitch Fatel Is Magical

#4 — PETE CORREALE – THE THINGS WE DO FOR LOVE
Though it may have seemed Pete Correale came out of nowhere this year, this New York-based comic has been building his reputation in Manhattan and on the road across the country as one of the nation’s most respected comedians for the better part of a decade. The Things we do for Love is proof that, in the proper hands, even traditional stand-up fodder – marriage, sex, aging – can be hilarious and inspired. Correale doesn’t blow minds with absurdist humor or topics from outer space. Rather, he reestablishes what we all experience and gives us many more brand new reasons to laugh at our lives. Correale is a craftsman, inventing immaculate jokes out of messy situations. Buy Pete Correale: The Things We Do For Love

#3 — CHRISTIAN FINNEGAN – AU CONTRAIRE!
In a scenario that’s becoming increasingly common for comedians looking to break out of the comedy club setting, Christian Finnegan’s second recorded effort, Au Contraire! was expertly filmed at Philadelphia’s Trocodero Theatre, a venue more known as one of the best punk and metal venues in the country than it is a place for great comedy. But Finnegan made the space his home, delivering a performance, from an aesthetic point of view, that brought back old-school vaudevillian charm (Old Tyme fonts onstage, Old Tyme intro and outro music, Finnegan’s dandy vest with rolled-up sleeves). From an artistic angle, Au Contraire! is reminiscent of the way George Carlin approached his specials; that is, it’s clear Finnegan takes pride in the structure of a joke, phrasing language, theatrics and memorizing thematic movements word for word. This concert is not just another show, but a great piece of art that happens to be hilarious. Buy Au Contraire!

#2 — JIM JEFFERIES – I SWEAR TO GOD
If you even half pay attention to this hour-long concert – first shown on HBO – by the end you’ll either feel horribly filthy inside or greatly relieved and maybe even justified that you’re such a fucking degenerate. In the vein of Jim Norton, Jefferies spends some time telling stories of his questionable drug and sex habits all the while downing pint after pint onstage. But it’s not just the x-rated topics that make this show entertaining. That Jefferies does it all artfully is what makes this performance special. His way of life may be dangerous, risky and poorly thought out; but Jim Jefferies’ stand-up is anything but. Clearly he treats the comedy writing process better than he does his own body. And that’s a great thing– for us, anyway. Buy Jim Jefferies: I Swear to God

#1 — TOM RHODES – RHODE SCHOLAR
Tom Rhodes is a comic’s comic—well respected in the industry as a tireless road horse but sorely overlooked by the comedy consuming public at large. In Rhode Scholar, his second independently released DVD, the always finely dressed, hippie-minded Rhodes literally travels the world. Part stand-up documentary, part video travelogue, the eternally positive comedian, takes his viewers to 38 cities around the world, and not just the major cities you’d expect a comedian to perform. We see Rhodes, among other places, in Rotterdam, Antwerp, Jakarta, Osaka and Amsterdam, taking as much pride in telling jokes as he is in learning about different cultures and then teaching us.

While the audio and video of his live performances don’t meet the quality standards of most commercially released concert discs, it’s hardly the point. And to be honest you’re going to have to check out tomrhodes.net to get updates on when and where you can get this treasure. This is a work full of love— an epic project that shows the ever-growing reach of stand-up comedy and the power it has to humanize the world, that is, if it’s in the hands of a man like Tom Rhodes. Scholar comes with a bonus disc, which is more of a traditional concert DVD that finds Rhodes performing his one-man show Built For Joy, a set full of slides projected on the wall, stories and straight-up stand-up material that constantly leaps from deeply personal to all-encompassing observational.

Be sure to check out Punchline Magazine’s list of the 10 best stand-up comedy albums of 2009.

Myq Kaplan: Comic to watch in 2010

by Dylan P. Gadino

It was an incredible year for stand-up comedy– for veteran and up-and-coming joke slingers alike. But we wanted to take some time to let you know about a handful of comics you may have not been 100 percent tuned into in 2009 and therefore should look out for in the new year. There’s no better way to start this off than with comedian Myq Kaplan.

Ever since comedian Myq Kaplan joined Punchline Magazine’s social networking site ComedySpace and uploaded a set of his stand-up, recorded in Boston, I couldn’t help but keep up with the diminutive man with the awesomely huge comedy chops.

But then again, it hasn’t been incredibly difficult to stay on his track, since he’s been popping up all over the comedy world these past few years. The New York City- and Boston-based comic has an understated, measured and precise delivery, thick with deft wordplay and intelligent and unique observations that prove edgy without being filthy.

So beyond my thinking Kaplan is a funny dude, why is it that I’m telling Punchline Magazine readers to look out for him in 2010. Where’s the proof – beyond my opinion – that other people agree with me? Here’s a few of the things he’s accomplished in 2009:

Just last night, he made his late night network debut on the Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien. Check his set out below and then continue reading his list of accolades.

He recently taped a 30-minute Comedy Central Presents comedy special, which will air early in 2010.

He won the March Comedy Madness contest, hosted by Carolines in New York City.

He was named the funniest comedian in New York City by winning the New York Comedy Contest.

He performed at Montreal’s Just For Laughs comedy festival last summer – the most respected comedy fest in the world – as part of the New Faces showcase shows. Read our review on his set here.

For the second year in a row, he was invited to perform at Boston’s AltCom comedy festival alongside great names like Eugene Mirman, Janeane Garofalo, Rob Riggle, Michael Showalter and Michael Ian Black.

He upped his visibility by landing a gig promoting Pizza Hut and Subway in a cross promotional campaign for Comedy Central. See the videos below.

So those are some of the things Kaplan accomplished this year. Next year is looking just as awesome. He’ll be releasing a new album, technically his second, called Vegan Mind Meld for BSeen Media, the same outfit that was integral in launching Mitch Fatel’s career and have released albums by comedy heavy hitters like Tom Papa, Tom Shillue and Josh Blue.

There’s no official release date for Vegan Mind Meld but we’ve been told to look out for it in late January or early February. We suggest you pre-order it here. And we also suggest you keep your eyes peeled and ears open for all things Myq Kaplan!

For more info on Myq, check out his official site at myqkaplan.com.

Guest blog: Dov Davidoff’s Christmas Unspectacular

by Dov Davidoff

He’s got an hour stand-up special set to debut on Comedy Central early next year. But for now, comedian Dov Davidoff has something to say about Christmas.

The best thing that ever happened to Christmas was “the letter.” It absolved us from any gift exchanging responsibilities with family. It was a letter my brother drafted upon returning from Nepal. Something about there being “too much clutter in an already cluttered world, and not wanting to add to it.”

I don’t like gift exchanging. It’s almost always a bad deal. As far as material goods, there is very little I want, and “piece of mind” cannot be found at the mall. The odds of someone getting me something I want are remote. And then after they’ve gotten me something I don’t want, I now owe them something they probably don’t want. Let’s just exchange bags of garbage. It costs less, and we can put each other’s gifts where they belong anyway— in the garbage.

The more I think about this whole gift exchange operation the more absurd it becomes. I had family I barely knew, sending me socks. Why not send me an old magazine or a packet of ketchup. It’s almost insulting. Out of obligation, I send them something made from cheap cotton. Now we’re shipping athletic wear back and forth across the country in some sort of “awful gift competition.” The same people win every year…FedEx. I spend time (I’d rather be doing something else with) finding something I think they’ll want. They do the same for me. I don’t want what they give me. They don’t want what I give them. Maybe we should both push a heavy rock up a hill and wave at each other, call it Sisyphus day.

It’s a tradition of futility and I want out. I have no beef with the symbolism of gift giving (closeness, warmth, appreciation) etc. This can all be accomplished with a note or letter, ideally “hand-written.” Technology and materialism are strange bed fellows. The hand written item is now so rare, it may seem like more of a gift than a gift.

“Gather ‘round everybody. we’ve recieved communication from the past…It’s been written in the ancient hand of the beast.”

It’s so uncommon to get something written by the human hand, I feel there should be some ritual associated with it. Maybe I’ll cover it with dust, and blow it off by candle light, during a full moon, but not before hiring a small man with large shoes and a pointy face to play the medieval flute, and as his silhouette dances among the trees, a tear will fall from my eye, knowing this might be the last time.

Also, the gift exchange is a personal liability.

* If I get something for a girl, and we’re “just banging,” she may get the impression that I’m not completely disconnected, emotionally. Before you know it, she’s expecting eye contact, and less “dog style.”

* If I give someone something lame, then I’m a little more lame than I was before I sent it. Now I’ve wasted time, energy, and money on something that actually makes this person like me a little less.

* If I get something too expensive, the person now thinks less of me for “over-valuing” our relationship because they don’t feel the same way about
me.

* If the person is meek and a-sexual like my good friend Michael, and I give them a pair of Nikes, they may think me inconsiderate. I should’ve known they’re in the “indie- comedy” game, and non-New Balance is strictly forbidden. They may say, “how am I supposed to run away from tail and be passive aggressive in these? They just don’t have the support”. I may say something like, “Hey fag, are you doing an improv character called “Ironic Man” right now? You’re all about originality and not being hacky, and “doing it different,” but you’ve done just the opposite by agreeing to an actual type of shoe with all the other 30yr old virgins.”

Now there’s is distance between us that would never have been there if not for the gift.

A black woman cutting my hair in the black barber shop said something to me that made sense. She said, “the only real holiday is your birthday, ‘cause that’s just for you. The rest of em’ are just to make money.”

The holiday season has become so intertwined with business cycles it seems the origins of celebration have been lost in a tornado of plans, purchases, trips, reservations, and obligations.

God bless.

For more info on Dov, check out his official site at dovdavidoff.com. To snag a copy of his 2008 album, The Point Is…, click on the image below.

The 10 best comedy albums of 2009

by Punchline Magazine

This past year was an incredibly strong time for stand-up comedy albums. It wasn’t easy for us to whittle down the list to just 10, but then what’s the fun in including everyone in a list? Like our list last year, the below selections have nothing to do with how popular each comedian is or how many copies of each album was sold. These are simply the albums we think are the strongest, most important, best stand-up comedy albums of 2009. Enjoy! (note: Keep your eyes peeled before the end of the year for Punchline Magazine’s list of 10 best stand-up comedy DVDs of 2009).

#10 – DAN CUMMINS – REVENGE IS NEAR
As of this writing, Washington-by-way-of-Idaho comedian Dan Cummins has not made a major dent in the collective minds of the mainstream comedy consuming public. But if this country has any sense left, comedy fans will soon embrace this great talent. A tireless road comic, Cummins has also just made his Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien debut and filmed an hour-long special for Comedy Central, which will air early in 2010. His debut album – released by Warner Bros – is a meticulous testament to intelligent, smart-ass, well-written comedy. Cummins proves vicious, without being loud; snarky but still relatable. We like that. It also doesn’t hurt that he has a “doctorate in unicorns.” Buy Revenge Is Near

#9 – PAUL F. TOMPKINS – FREAK WHARF
Although the first 15 minutes of Paul F. Tompkins’ second CD Freak Wharf is labeled “riffs,” – largely unplanned material – none of the initial third of the album lacks control, precision or fun— qualities the dapper veteran comedian’s loyal fanbase has come to expect from him. In fact, the start of the wholly hilarious collection of bits, plays the perfect primer for the rest of its spin. More than ever, Tompkins is the master of minimalist comedy, routinely taking the most basic of topics – what’s better: cake or pie?; those machines at carnivals that smash pennies; one line in a famous book – and proving that comedy needs not be earth shattering or complicated to be artful and worthy of deep respect. Buy Freak Wharf

#8 – MATT KIRSHEN – I GUESS WE’LL NEVER KNOW
British comedian Matt Kirshen impressed us in 2007 when he was one of the very few Last Coming Standing contestants we didn’t dislike. We admit, however, we forgot about him— that is, until Stand Up! Records released I Guess We’ll Never Know, a start-to-finish, smart-as-hell collection of perfectly delivered, well-constructed jokes. Inquisitive to the end, the young comedian thrives on light-heartedly questioning society’s more mindless citizens. With his energetic and naturally friendly stage presence, he’s one of the easiest comedians to like on our list. If given the proper exposure, we see thousands more of American comedy fans liking him just as much as we do. Buy I Guess We’ll Never Know

#7 – LAURIE KILMARTIN – FIVE MINUTES TO MYSELF
Laurie Kilmartin has the superpower that separates comedians from civilians: the mystic vision necessary to see the humor in the mundane and the insane. Without designer eyewear or special lenses, she discerns the absurdity in abortion, racial stereotypes and, yes, even rape. Using a sharp tongue instead of a steak knife, the mom in Kilmartin cuts what she observes while strolling through life into sound-bite-size wisecracks easy for connoisseurs of sarcasm to devour. She works from the approved comics’ checklist: riffing and ripping on her boyfriend, religion, the sexes and the races. But she does so deftly, stinging her prey without lacerating the audience. Buy Five Minutes to Myself

#6 – DOUG STANHOPE – FROM ACROSS THE STREET
It may sound odd to describe a comedian as “important.” After all, a comedian’s job is to make his audience laugh, yes? Well, it all depends on what type of person you are and what flavor of emotional release you’re looking for when you decide to pony up 12 bucks for a live comedy album. But Doug Stanhope is one of the most important stand-up comedians of our time, and his fourth proper album, From Across the Street, further proves that. Street embodies what stand-up should be: unfiltered, raw, and honest; angry at times and incredibly vulnerable at others. This album and Stanhope himself, is not for comedy beginners but should be required listening for pro fans of quality stand-up. Buy From Across the Street

#5 – DOUG BENSON – UNBALANCED LOAD
If laughter is the best medicine, then this CD is the vaccine for gloom, though, ironically, mainly because it’s infectious. Depressed? Stash the pills and pop in this disc from the prankish “pro-weed professional humoredian.” You won’t be able to resist guffawing at a guy who’s having as much fun as Benson is onstage. Bonus: no side effects, unless you count stomach cramps from laughing so hard at this alternately seditious and silly 55-minute set, which includes TWO knock-knock jokes (part of a premise about a tour guide who attempts to flavor his blander-than-white-rice talks with juvenile jokes) and meta-clever tracks about segues and hecklers that gently prick Benson’s profession. Buy Unbalanced Load

#4 – MARIA BAMFORD – UNWANTED THOUGHTS SYNDROME
For her third album, her first for Comedy Central, one of the country’s best absurdist comedians, Maria Bamford gets more personal than she has before, telling her audience about her 26-year struggle with an OCD condition that made her “try not to make eye contact [with anyone], and then later, no human contact at all” for fear that she’d cause those people bodily harm. Sounds the opposite of funny, we know, but once the Bammer sets the pain up throughout the album, she quickly squashes it in that hilariously demented – vocal contortions, and all – Midwestern way we love so much. Buy Unwanted Thoughts Syndrome

#3 – MARC MARON – FINAL ENGAGEMENT
It was a big year for Marc Maron. He performed a run of his one-man show Scorching the Earth in New York City, took it to Montreal’s Just for Laughs festival, co-hosted Air America’s live Internet chat show Break Room Live and launched his popular podcast WTF. But his greatest accomplishment this year was the release of the double-disc Final Engagement, his third and most diverse, as we see this professional narcissist dive into his two failed marriages, his hatred for Scotland, his station as a multiple cat owner and the idea that maybe he’s ready to quit the comedy business to open up a bakery that serves “hate cakes.” This is comedy naked, ugly and funny– the way it should be. Buy Final Engagement

#2 – PATTON OSWALT – MY WEAKNESS IS STRONG
If there were such things as stand-up comedy 45’s, we’d like to nominate Patton Oswalt’s “Sky Cake” (below) as a side A and “The Sad Boy” as its B-side, two of the strongest and funniest comedy tracks released in 2009, wherein Oswalt succinctly dissects the origin of religion and the effects of clinical depression with hilarious results. He does it with a myriad of topics over and again throughout Weakness; but he often breaks from “serious” situations to boast his story telling prowess, especially in the harrowing tale of his wife and the giant rat (it looked like Danny DeVito in a costume) and the time he walked into a house the morning after an orgy and was forced to smell “fuck fumes.” Buy My Weakness Is Strong

#1 – GREG GIRALDO – MIDLIFE VICES
As the title implies, Greg Giraldo’s latest album finds the veteran comic exploring some of the demons – drugs, alcohol, two marriages – that have shaped the father of three’s outlook on his life and the world around him. And he does so with a committed aggression throughout that is oftentimes artfully laced with his hyper sensitive reflections on his own moral shortcomings.

A great stand-up comedian will, after 45 minutes or so on stage, leave his audience spent— spent from laughing, spent from thinking, feeling. Midlife Vices does this masterfully. Few comedians offer the thematic breadth Giraldo does onstage. Intense in tone, like a kettle repeatedly boiling and then spilling over, Giraldo incises life and from its pieces, molds a string of truths that are equally enlightening and hilarious. If a stand-up newbie was looking for the best example of quality contemporary comedy, this would be it. That’s why we have no reservations calling Greg Giraldo’s Midlife Vices the best comedy album of 2009. Buy Midlife Vices…seriously, buy it now.

Tony Clifton: Andy Kaufman’s spirit carries on

by Rob Turbovsky

In the late 1970s, the late legendary comedian Andy Kaufman met and befriended Las Vegas lounge act Tony Clifton– or so the story goes. Shortly after that, however, we all learned that Andy was Tony… maybe. Either way, Tony’s back in the spotlight just in time for the release of the new book Dear Andy Kaufman, I Hate Your Guts.

If there were one thing that I know now that I wish I’d known in the minutes before “International Singing Sensation”/horrific alcoholic Tony Clifton called me, it would be that “International Singing Sensation”/horrific alcoholic Tony Clifton was going to call me in a few minutes. But, even with a lot of preparation, you face some pretty fundamental challenges in interviewing Tony Clifton.

The obvious one is that he’s a fictional character— an abrasive, abusive, somewhat intolerable lounge lizard created and first played by Andy Kaufman, who, as you might know, has been dead or (depending on who you believe) on Mars for 25 years. But, the more troubling one is that he seems now to have willed himself into actual existence. Clifton has his own career mythology, family history, and epic touring show, and he seems to have taken over the life of (I’m guessing) longtime Kaufman collaborator and friend Bob Zmuda in some kind of Spider-Man/Venom-like scenario that I can’t even begin to understand.

I had planned to interview Zmuda on the occasion of last week’s publication of Dear Andy Kaufman, I Hate Your Guts, a deliriously strange collection assembled by Kaufman’s girlfriend Lynne Margulies of the late comedian’s best bits of hate mail from his lady wrestling days. (Margulies was also behind the documentary Andy Kaufman: I’m From Hollywood, an essential chronicle of the same phase of Kaufman’s career.)

Somehow, Tony Clifton got wind of the interview and called me instead.

This meant some adjusting to my game plan. I’d hoped to talk to Zmuda about how he and Kaufman had a hand in the creation of alt- and anti-comedy decades before those terms existed, how the pair predicted the rise of reality television stars, and how Kaufman played so pivotal a role in expanding the idea of what a comedian could possibly do onstage. With Clifton, on the other hand, I had to more or less cede control of the topics as the conversation veered into street jokes and speculation about what caused his son to be born retarded (spoiler: it involves anal sex!).

I should preface the interview with one note: in September of 2008, I saw Tony Clifton and his enormous Katrina Kiss My Ass Orchestra at the Comedy Connection at the Wilbur Theatre in Boston. For a bewildered, delighted crowd of perhaps a hundred, Clifton performed an unforgettable set that approached the five-hour mark and only ended because Clifton could barely stand upright and most of the audience had either left or, in one instance that may or may not have been real, been ejected by Clifton himself.

In keeping with the Kaufman legacy of (briefly) “What the hell is this? Is this real? Why is this funny? Jesus Christ, this is hilarious,” the show wasn’t Bob Zmuda performing some removed meta-parody of a horrible Vegas lounge act; it was Tony Clifton performing an actual, horrible Vegas lounge act, with dancers, musicians, whiskey, fist fights, and a whole lot of fun. It remains one of the best, most inspiring, and most infuriating shows of any kind that I’ve ever seen.

Tony Clifton called me from New York. It went like this.

Hello?
Is this Rob?

It is.
Is this Rob Turbovsk – what the – how do you say your name?

Turbovsky.
This is Tony Clifton. How ya doin’ my friend?

I’m very well. How are you?
I’m good. Is that a Polish name?

Russian/Ukrainian, I think. It’s all in the same Eastern European ballpark.
You hear about the Polack whose wife had triplets?

No.
He went out looking for the two other guys. That’s a dumb Polack. Polish firing squad: they stand in a circle.

Well –
Polish parachute: opens on impact. I know a lot of Polish jokes.

The best show I’ve ever seen – and I tell people this all the time – was Tony Clifton in Boston last year.
We had a good show there.

Unbelievable show.
Yeah. And, now, I tell ya, you come see it, it’s even gotten better. It’s new and improved. We got many more numbers, many more girls, and a lot of fun.

When I saw the show, it was four and a half hours long. How many more numbers are in it?
Well, we did about four hours the other night at Santos’ Party House. Some nights, it goes crazy. Some nights, I start drinking early. When we did Boston, it went on long, didn’t it?

It went on until after they stopped running subway trains.
We have fun. But, I’m very proud of the troupe. As you see, are those girls beautiful or what? They’re amazing. Very talented dancers. Then, I got Keely, my newly adopted daughter. But, it’s good. Thank you for coming out to that show. I think it’s the best damn show out there, at a very reasonable price.

How do you get ready for a show? Do you have a routine?
I watch a lot of porno. A lot of porno. I try not to jerk off, maybe two or three days before a show. That’s why my shows go so long. I’m not joking. I’m like a boxer. Right before a show, I’ll watch porno like a son of a bitch. But, I don’t cum. I come close. I’ll jerk it, but I don’t shoot the wad out. I keep that energy in there.

The only person I’ve ever seen do anything close to a five-hour show is Bruce Springsteen. I wonder if he has the same approach.
I’ll betchya he does.

What have you done to mark this year being the 25th anniversary of Andy Kaufman’s death?
Well, you know, I hosted over at Caroline’s Comedy Club, I think about a week ago, I hosted the Andy Kaufman Award contest [an annual competition for comics demonstrating “originality, creativity, spirit and execution, as exemplified by Andy Kaufman”]. The brother – Michael Kaufman – called me and asked me if I could come emcee. Now, I think he’s thinking that wasn’t a very good idea, because I was removed. I was bodily removed.

I’m sitting there. I brought one of the Cliftonettes with me, I brought my own pianist. And, who wants to see these new comics come up there? They weren’t very good. I’m sitting there, “Mr. Entertainment,” “International Singing Sensation” with hot babes, ready to perform for them, so I kind of commandeered the show, and I don’t think people appreciated that, so they had me bodily removed.

They owed me some money too. They had a Jew there who told me he was going to give me some money. He tried to give me a check. And I said, “I ain’t taking no check from a Jew.” I made them go to the box office and get some cash. Then, I left.

They had some sign up, because there was a comedy festival that week [the New York Comedy Festival], and it was “Come tomorrow. There’s going to be an autograph signing with Alan Zweibel.” Who the fuck would want Alan Zweibel’s fucking autograph? They had him, Andrea Martin, then Carol Kane. All these people are there because they aren’t working.

So, I said that, and Carol Kane was actually in the audience, and she got up in a huff and left. Then, people started booing, and I was drinking, and then next thing I know, I was bodily removed. Good riddance.

Now, there’s this new book coming out, Dear Andy Kaufman, I Hate Your Guts, which is a collection of Andy’s hate mail.
Yeah, yeah, that’s Margulies – Lynne Margulies, the girlfriend there [put that together].

You’ve probably gotten a lot of hate mail over the years.
Yeah, but not as much as people would think. A lot of it was aimed at Kaufman. Kaufman started doing an impression of me, and then people started sending him the hate mail, thinking that Kaufman was me. Now, every once in a while, I’ll do the show, and someone will yell out, “Are you Andy Kaufman?” You know what I say? I’ll say, “Do you want to see Andy Kaufman? Get yourself a flashlight and a shovel.” I did an interview the other day, and someone said to me, “If Andy Kaufman was alive today, what would he be doing?” Guess what I said?

I have no idea.
He’d be scratching at the inside of his casket. That kind of shut him up. I didn’t understand that guy’s act much. I don’t think he had an act. But, what kind of an act do you call that? Sitting and doing children’s songs, Mighty Mouse? If I want to see that, I’ll watch Romper Room. And, he was wrestling the women. I think that was really disrespectful of women…hey, that reminds me, what’s the difference between a bitch and a whore?

What’s that?
A whore will fuck every guy in the room. A bitch will fuck every guy in the room but you. I like that one. So, what were you saying? You had a question?

When did Andy first see you? It must’ve been Las Vegas, right?
In Vegas in 1969. He went out there to see Elvis Presley. He hitchhiked. Of course, I did not see him at the time, because I didn’t know who the guy was. He must’ve came and saw me, because next thing I know, a couple of years after that, Bugsy calls me and says, ‘Hey Tony, where’s that money you owe me?’ I owed him some money, and I said, ‘What are you talking about, Bugsy?’ He said, ‘Well, you can pay me now, because your ship came in. I understand you’re playing Carnegie Hall. You’re opening for this Andy Kaufman.’

I had no idea who this Kaufman was. Sure enough, they showed me the ad from the New York Times and Carnegie Hall, it said ‘Andy Kaufman. With opening act Tony Clifton.’ I went, ‘What the fuck is this all about?’

I went to the pay phone, because times were kind of tough for me back then, and I called Shapiro. George Shapiro, Andy’s manager.

In the movie [Man on the Moon], that little midget Danny De Vito played him. Which I think was kind of insulting to George, because De Vito is a little midget, and he’s a little man on top of that! And, he’s got a Napoleonic complex. If you see him, tell him I’ll kick his ass down the street! Anyway, don’t get me off on Danny De Vito. It’s a whole other story.

So, anyway, I called Shapiro, and he won’t take my call. Because that Jew son of a bitch, he’s some fucking sheeny bastard down in Beverly Hills…I kept calling collect, and he won’t take it. So, I got my own Jew lawyer, and my Jew lawyer called him, because those Jews…that reminds me – have you heard about the Jewish pedophile? He says, “Hey, little girl, you want to buy some candy?” I can joke about the Jews, because, as you know, I had a relative who died in Auschwitz.

Yeah?
Yeah. He fell off the guard tower.

Anyway, then, they took me seriously. Kaufman called me, because I guess they were afraid I was going to sue him or something. He said, ‘I didn’t know, Tony, I didn’t know. I was just doing an impression of you.’ I said, ‘Don’t do an impression of me. I’m me. Get me.’ So, they hired me then, and I started opening for Kaufman. They booked me on David Letterman, Miss Piggy, stuff like that. For years, everybody thought that’s Andy Kaufman. He’d be sitting home laughing. That’s how stupid the public is.

How are you adjusting to having a black president?
You mean the anointed one? I kind of get a kick out of him. More and more people are turning on this guy, though. I think he’s a good man. That one daughter of his is really hot. She’s growing a little up on top there. It’s pretty good. He kind of grabs her and hugs her a little too cozy, if you ask me. Maybe somebody should report that. Look into it.

But, you know, this guy – I’m not being funny now, I’m talking seriously. Everybody thinks everything is a joke with me. I talk seriously, as you see. As you know! And, as you know! Everybody thinks everything about me is going to be a joke or a song or a dance. It’s not! I’ve got my own opinions! About everything! I think – what was I talking about? I’ve been drinking all day.

That guy they’re going to put on trial here [in New York], they said he was waterboarded 183 times in one month. And, that Abu Ghraib thing…the news pictures with the dog collars and them crawling around and all that…Well, I’ll tell you something my friend, I’ve spent a lot of time at Dennis Hof’s Moonlite Bunny Ranch, a legal brothel in Nevada, and I paid good money for stuff like that. I come in sometimes, and I like to be treated like a dirty dog. I’ll pay the girl, and she’ll put a collar on me and walk me around. Sometimes, I even shit on myself like a fucking beast. And, I’ll roll in it. Stink in it. I pay for that. So, what are these people talking about?

Do you keep up with the news, in general? Are you planning on reading Sarah Palin’s book?
I’m not going to read Sarah Palin’s book. She’s a hot piece of ass, though. I went to one of her rallies once, not that I was for her, I just wanted to see what it was like. But, now, she’s got that ex-son-in-law [Levi Johnston], and he’s doing a spread in Playgirl. They got a big battle going on, and he said that she came home one day, and he was sitting there, and she walked in and said, ‘Where’s my retarded kid?’

And, I listen to that, and I go, ‘But wait a second. Maybe she just has a sense of humor.’ Because I’ve got a retarded boy too: Toby. He’s a retard. He’s goofy. He’s about 40 years old, and he’s got the mind of like a four-year-old.

For many years, I’d bring him to the Christmas parties, and we’d start spinning him around to make him dizzy. And, he’s retarded on top of that. He was brought on this planet to laugh. You laugh at him. He doesn’t have any hurt feelings. He doesn’t know. He’s given a lot of joy. I’ll put some booze down him too. There’s nothing like booze down a fucking retard.

I’ll tell you when this took place. I know exactly when this shit came down. It was ’68, Days of Rage, Chicago. I went to Lincoln Park, it was like the hippie dippie times. The first joint I ever had, a girl gave it to me there. We were so fucked up, and she was on acid. I think it was the mixture of the acid that she had taken…and I was fucking her pussy, then I stuck my dick in her ass, then I put it back in that pussy. I think it was the mixture of the cum, her shit that was on my fucking dick, and then also the acid she was taking, and she got pregnant. That’s how we had Toby, the mongoloid kid.

Back then, you see a mongoloid monstrosity like that, I wanted to take him behind the barn and put him in a bucket of water, take him out of his misery. But, they kind of stopped me, so he lives at Cliftonmere with me now. The Cliftonettes come out there, and I keep him pretty much tied away, away from the house and the girls. But, soon, you’ll see stuff on TonyClifton.net. You will see Toby. I’m not joking about this.

What else can we expect to see from you?
Oh, this is exciting. We’re going back to Cliftonmere, and I’m recording my first album, my first CD. It’s like, remember when Sinatra did duets?

Sure.
We’re lining up different guest artists that I’ll be recording with. As a matter of fact, I’m going to give you a little scoop right now. Just worked this out the other day: the first group I’ll be recording with – we’re going to do a duet together – is REM. So, we’re bringing people in. Once we do that, then we’re going to go on the road again. We’ll be back in your part of town, and we’ll do it up right. And, you come.

Do you -
WHO IS THAT? I’M COMING OUT IN A LITTLE WHILE! I’M ON THE PHONE! I’VE GOT AN INTERVIEW HERE! WHAT TIME IS IT?! WHAT TIME IS CHECK OUT?! WELL, THEY CAN GIVE ME A FEW MINUTES, DON’T YOU THINK?!

Dear Andy Kaufman, I Hate Your Guts is a collection of hate mail and accompanying photos that Andy Kaufman received, kept, and planned to publish. It features an introduction by Lynne Margulies and a foreword by Bob Zmuda. Visit Tony Clifton online (at your own risk) at TonyClifton.net. Buy the book by clicking on the image above!