If It's Not Funny Just Try Screaming Louder
Tom e-mails to ask,
Not sure if you were going to write about this or not, but did you read Neal Justin's column regarding un-famous comedian Lewis Black?
I did read it, but frankly I just didn't have the energy to comment. Tom however is raring to go and so I will gladly yield the floor:
This past week, I was traveling and the hotel had HBO as a selection. In one of their between presentation breaks (ten to twenty minutes of self-congratulations for HBO on how award winningly edgy they are) was an ad for Lewis Blacks' comedy special. It shows him telling a bunch of children that their government is nothing but a front for big oil and other such "on the edge" and "dangerous" comments. I surfed on fairly quickly because "edgy" in my view would be John Stossel doing an hour on how ill served we the people are by incompetent bureaucrats in our government.
Today, Neal Justin covers the aforementioned Mr. Black. Neal doesn't give him credit for being very original...
"You've heard the routines before: I hate airplanes; I hate Bush; I hate cold weather. The jokes aren't inspired; the delivery is"...
All I could think of is The Simpson's Krusty the Klown. This over-the-hill hack (Krusty or Black) gets cancelled and makes a comeback as an "angry" comedian. But I loved this line from the column as well...
"If that doesn't make you laugh, at least it'll wake you up, which is more than I can say for much of the comedy scene over the past decade. For too long we were lulled by the decaffeinated humor of Jerry Seinfeld, Ellen DeGeneres and Jeff Foxworthy. They're clever enough, and are still headliners, but you can't help feeling their acts could have been heard by our grandparents, sitting in front of the phonograph with a mug of chamomile tea"...
Yeah, Neal, if we are not shocked by someone screaming bad words, we are not entertained.
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