the comic's comic

In other news...

Ready for the weekend? Me, too. But first, a few things to mention and link to that people are reading and talking about in comedy circles...

• I would have put the animated GIF version of Conan's Tonight Show backdrop (shown above as stills) on the site, but I didn't want your minds to explode all Nintendo-like. Click on Serious Lunch, if you dare.
• Speaking of Tonight Show matters, I have learned exclusively (exclusively? really? everyone knew about it when I put it on my Twitter yesterday) that Bill Burr will be the first stand-up comedian to perform on Conan's Tonight Show on Monday, June 8, 2009. Trivia! Anthony Jeselnik, a writer for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, has a joke about how he was the first stand-up to perform on Fallon's show -- and if that's not a big deal to you, then it should be. I'm trying to think of who the other first stand-ups were on Leno, Letterman and the biggie, Carson. Johnny Carson. Who was thinking I meant Carson Daly?! Google is not helping.
• New York magazine talked to Mike Birbiglia today, as he ends his "limited run" engagement Off-Broadway of Sleepwalk with Me this weekend at 198 performances.
• Lin-Manuel Miranda from Freestyle Love Supreme (and Tony-winning musical man) will co-star in the new season of House as Hugh Laurie's roommate, says EW's Michael Ausiello.
• The Laugh Track assembled 17 yearbook photographs of funny people, in case you didn't get a chance to see what any of these folks looked like when they were in high school and college. 
• The Television Critics Association (TCA) announced their nominations for best in TV shows yesterday, and all of you yahoos who don't think Saturday Night Live hasn't been funny in years will find yourselves in stark contrast to TV critics: They think SNL was one of the best overall shows of the year. In the comedy bracket, they narrowed the field to 30 Rock, The Big Bang Theory, The Daily Show, How I Met Your Mother and The Office. For individual achievement in comedy, they liked Alec Baldwin, Steve Carell, Tina Fey, Neil Patrick Harris and Jim Parsons. They also liked United States of Tara as one of the best new shows. Chelsea Handler will open the awards show Aug. 1 in Pasadena.

This American Life - Live! features Mike Birbiglia, Dave Hill

Ira Glass is hosting a live edition of his radio program, This American Life, that will happen before a sold-out audience at NYU's Skirball Center and broadcast on 400 movie screens across the country, with stories from Mike Birbiglia, Dan Savage and Starlee Kine, a "special investigation" by Dave Hill and David Rakoff, a new cartoon from Chris Ware, visuals from Arthur Jones, and an appearance by Joss Whedon. It happens at 8 p.m. Eastern, 7 p.m. Central, 6 p.m. Mountain -- then tape-delayed for 8 p.m. Pacific. You can check for tickets at a cinema near you. If you cannot make it tonight but still would like to enjoy this show in a movie theater, some cinemas will rebroadcast tonight's show on May 7.

The epicenter of NYC comedy?

Location, location, location. That's the mantra in real estate, and perhaps the folks at Adult Swim followed it by choosing Bleecker and Lafayette as the setting for their larger-than-life advertisement for Delcoated, the very funny new short series that airs on Thursday nights. (Thanks, Aziz)

You can catch up with Delocated here.

But about that location. The billboard looms large over 45 Bleecker, which is home not only to Mike Birbiglia's successful off-Broadway run of Sleepwalk With Me, but also Lizz Winstead's Shoot the Messenger satire of the morning news, as well as the new one-man show by Marc Maron, Scorching the Earth, which will play Sunday nights at the theater in March.

Coincidentally, Maron sat down with his show producer/comedy blogger Dylan P. Gadino for "A Tight Five."

92YTribeca spoofs New York Times Weekender ad

If you live near New York City, or even in New England, you see the TV ad for the New York Times Weekender subscription a lot. A lot, a lot. Perhaps this ad even runs nationally? Regardless, the new 92YTribeca facility, which has been booking lots of great comedy shows (thank you, Bart Coleman), just released this new advertisement written and directed by Michael Showalter and featuring Paul Rudd and many funny stand-up comedians. How many do you recognize? If you need a hint, just look at my category tags below. Related: The 92YTribeca's comedy schedule. Enjoy!

To Do Thursday: See Wayne Federman host Todd Barry, Dave Hill, Jessi Klein and others in 92YTribeca's weekly Comedy Below Canal series (tickets and info).

Sleepwalk With Me extended through March 2009

Via Playbill, news is good for Mike Birbiglia's Off-Broadway one-man show, Sleepwalk With Me, good enough that he'll continue telling his uncomfortable stories through March 22, 2009. So if you want to see Birbiglia, you'll know where to find him. Also, a reminder that tonight, Ira Glass joins Birbiglia for a post-show segment called "An Awkward 10 Minutes with Mike."

In other news, blogs...

Some quick hits and links of comedians and comedy making news around the Internets...

In Rob Corddry's interview with Defamer today, Corddry announces that he has sold a sitcom to HBO about an unlikely political candidate, and that the show, once pitched in a Bush world, has adapted to the new Obama Nation reality. Corddry: "At first it was a really cynical story about how we’re told growing up how anybody can become president. And the last eight years that’s been proven to pretty much be more terrifying than it is inspiring. So that was sort of our tagline before we even had a show: “Anybody can become President. Anyone.” But now we are burdened—burdened!—by hope and optimism. So the character has changed into one who feels the weight of other people’s hope, and is just a little too hungover to deal with it on most occasions."

The second Detroit International Comedy Festival continues to seek submissions for 2009 performers. You have until Dec. 31 to get considered for the March 16-21 fest, which shall include: Best of Detroit, Best of the Midwest, Best of the East Coast, Best of the West Coast and International showcases, plus a national headliner for the weekend at Mark Ridley's Comedy Castle. Note: There is a $25 fee, which you'd include with your DVD, bio, and headshot to Aspen Talent, 11385 Shaffer Road, Davisburg MI, 48350. Questions? moroz@aspentalent.com

If you're looking for even more reasons to attend Mike Birbiglia's winning Off-Broadway production, Sleepwalk with Me, then try catching a new weekly post-show segment called "An Awkward Ten Minutes With Mike" in which a special guest shares a "previously untold uncomfortable story" to fit with the theme of Birbiglia's one-man show. Birbiglia's celebrity producer, Nathan Lane, chatted it up last week. This Thursday, it's Zach Galifianakis, and on Dec. 17, radio host Ira Glass sits in for a quick story. And if ticket prices are a concern, and you're young and broke, consider asking for one of a limited amount of 50% discounted tix ($25) at the box office an hour before showtime, and be prepared to show student ID or proof of your poverty.

Hunter Stephenson over at /film went down to North Carolina to visit the set of the upcoming HBO comedy, East Bound and Down, which stars Danny McBride and is brought to the cable network by Adam McKay and Will Ferrell. McBride plays a former big league pitcher who's not as big as he used to be, and he tells Stephenson: "When we wrote this, we really just wanted to do our take on a weird American epic modern hero. He has all the qualities that an epic hero should, but they’re only the worst qualities. It’s completely ass backwards. He’s sort of the current state of the modern American hero."

Speaking of Will Ferrell, the Funny or Die guy is doing a special promotion for the site's newsletter, because if you sign up to get the FOD emails, you may win a personalized voicemail message recorded by Ferrell (this sounds like something NPR does already, doesn't it?).

The Dec. 8, 2008, issue of The New Yorker features a review of 30 Rock, the TV show. The sitcom is in its third season. Third. I'm waiting for next week's critical review of Seinfeld, and whether they think that star surrounded himself with better talent, and whether that's going to work out for him.

Comedy Central relaunches Jokes.com

Have you visited Jokes.com today? Comedy Central has revamped the site completely -- had you clicked over there even only yesterday, you would have faced a drab waste of a landscape of lame jokes, submitted anonymously from years ago, from a world in which all jokes are timeless, and yet somehow not able to be searched or indexed in any tangible way whatsoever. All of that is to say how bright and vibrant the new Comedy Central Jokes.com looks today. It'll take a while to sort through it all. For now, though, let me say that I clicked on a couple of sample comedians (Mike Birbiglia because I saw his face looking at me, and Carlos Mencia just to see what jokes Comedy Central would attribute to him!), and wonder if they paid someone to transcribe all stand-up comedy specials, CDs, and DVDs, and if so, how much one gets paid to do that (I'm available!).

Worth mentioning thus far: Why do Comedy Central sites often load a front page with auto-start videos? Not nice, Comedy Central. Particularly for those people who have jobs and are trying to see your funnies on the fly. Today's video features Dane Cook in all of his sweaty black wifebeater 2000 full physical glory. Also enjoyed how the comedians page on the site manages to promote not only Comedy Central's branded comedy tours and performers, but also up-and-comers such as my friends Dan Boulger and Joe List among the famous faces, podcasts, and tours.

Take a spin on the site and tell me your thoughts on the revamp!

Review: Mike Birbiglia in "Sleepwalk With Me"

I have to preface this review...with two thoughts: 1) Mike Birbiglia told me tonight at his opening-night party that I need to come back and see his show again because he made changes even in the past week. And 2) Sometimes in comedy you may see a performer so many times, that it becomes difficult to process the performance for what it is. That happened with Mike Birbiglia and me earlier this year. We crossed paths so often in the spring and summer, that by the time I saw his rough version of what would become his off-Broadway one-man show in Montreal, old jokes and new jokes and stories all kind of blurred in my head. Thankfully, for both of us, we took some time off from each other, and when I caught a preview of Birbiglia's Sleepwalk With Me two weeks ago, not only could I see how much work he'd put into his show, but with fresh eyes, I could see how it all fits together now.

Sleepwalk With Me opens its limited engagement tonight at The Bleecker Street Theatre. The stage is set up for dreaming, with a deep blue floor and wall offering reflective views of the comedian as he talks, save for one cracked hole in the wall that looks as though someone had yelled, "Kool-Aid!" Birbiglia emerges through the hole and wisely warms up the audience with an annoucement about cell phones, which in turn, leads into a five-minute bit of his on cell phones and technology. Some of Birbiglia's critics worry that he tends to reuse material from one CD to another, but this bit makes perfect sense here to get the audience in the proper mood not just for a show, but also for the kind of storytelling that Birbiglia has gotten quite adept at. Another five minutes he spends talking about his mother and father, and their differing opinions on how much of your personal life should become public, and you're ready to hear about his own need to share uncomfortable stories with strangers. In this case, his own strange but truly uncomfortable life story.

Mike Birbiglia tonight: On Conan, Off-Broadway

Mike Birbiglia has a busy afternoon and evening planned for his Friday, Oct. 17. Not only will he perform stand-up and do his first panel chat on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, but he'll also open his Off-Broadway show, Sleepwalk With Me, which begins previews tonight at the Bleecker Street Theatre. Here is his message to the masses:

Related: My friend Nick A. Zaino III followed Birbiglia around NYC earlier this month watching him promote the show, and filed this report for the Boston Globe.

The Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival

Eugene Mirman has announced the planned lineups for his crazy-yet-true-because-it-is-Eugene-after-all comedy festival named for him, taking place Sept. 25-28 in Brooklyn. Mirman pretty much has it covered -- most of his usual and unusual suspects will appear over those four days and nights at two venues, Union Hall (where Mirman already hosts the popular Tearing the Veil of Maya showcase on Sundays with Michael Showalter in Park Slope) and The Bell House (a new joint the Union Hall folks are opening nearby).

Time Out NY playfully hinted at what a Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival might look like, with hints from Mirman himself.

Want to see who's scheduled to perform?

O&A "fans" pester O&A live comedy to death

Opie and Anthony have provided a great service to stand-up comedy by having comedians appear as regular guests on their FM and satellite radio programs over the years, but their efforts to translate that partnership into a live comedy tour, aka the Traveling Virus, has failed. Because their "fans" known as "pests" have booed too many of the comedians, and even the radio hosts themselves. The last straw came earlier this month in New Jersey with the only Traveling Virus show of 2008, when the crowd turned on Mike Birbiglia during his very first joke. On the following Monday's program, "Anthony points out that comics who've flown to IRAQ, risking both life and limb to entertain our troops, were afraid to subject themselves to a group of booing O&A psychopaths." Here is video from the Birbiglia boobirds:

O&A fans on the message boards have a 19-page discussion about the incident. But this has been an ongoing problem, from the horrible crowd in Philadelphia two years ago for Bill Burr, to the more recent Animation Festival where Dan Naturman got heckled, and even the non-Virus shows I've seen that featured a heavy O&A (or even Howard Stern, as in Artie Lange) comedy lineup. I have friends who love listening to either O&A and/or Stern and are loyal listeners. But there is a larger audience of these knucklehead radio listeners who have gotten it into their knuckleheads that it's supposed to be fun to yell and heckle and boo the comedians. Perhaps they think, like most hecklers, that they're helping. They're not. Or perhaps they listen to the morning radio and hear these comedians busting on each other, and think that if they can roast one another on the air, then it must be acceptable for an audience member to join in the roasting. Which doesn't make any sense, because that's not how you're supposed to act at a live comedy show. Especially when the radio hosts, who you supposedly love, beg and plead with you not to boo. Which is exactly the position Opie and Anthony found themselves in this month. They can continue to support stand-up by having comedians on the air, but I think it's for the best that they finally decided to put a halt to their pests and not allow them to continue ruining the live comedy experience for actual fans.

"Sleepwalk With Me" sets Off-Broadway run

Mike Birbiglia's new one-man show, Sleepwalk With Me, has found a venue and a start date for its Off-Broadway run. Previews begin Oct. 17 at the Bleecker Street Theatre. Nathan Lane is helping out, at least in name. For more info, go to the show's site and sign up for updates. Or just check back here. In the meantime, Birbigs continues his regularly scheduled stand-up tour dates this month and into September. I hope he actually wears an outfit like this during his show.

Montreal 2008: Flying Solo reviews

After running around the city on Wednesday night, I decided to make my Thursday much easier to digest by camping out at Theatre Ste-Catherine for three of the Flying Solo one-man shows, which just so happened to feature revered comedians Mike Birbiglia, Brendon Burns and Patrice Oneal.

It's a narrow, intimate black box of a room with a small balcony, which makes it kind of a perfect space for Mike Birbiglia to test his upcoming Off-Broadway show, Sleepwalk with Me. Having seen Birbiglia dozens of times already this year in New York City, and heard pretty much all of these stories before, it makes it more difficult to process what he's done here -- although I can tell you the structure he settled upon for Montreal is a different non-linear approach from anything I'd seen before from him. Certainly, the sleepwalking stories resonate with me (I have sleptwalked my way out of my apartment twice and locked myself out, but had a more dangerous incident as a child falling down the stairs in my sleep) and Birbiglia manages to hit just the right dramatic and poignant notes. He goes off on tangents earlier in the hour-plus to include jokes about his ADD and his first time performing (seen previously on Comedy Central's My First Time), wondering about bears, and a couple of times, he says "What I Should Have Said" which reminds you of his DVD. Anyhow. Two other comedians with me, who haven't seen Birbiglia as often as I have, thought it was one of the best shows they'd seen. His final Montreal shows are on Saturday.

Brendon Burns is a guy who isn't afraid to get in your faces, and literally will do so several times during his show, So I Suppose This Is Offensive Now. Burns, who won the top prize last year in Edinburgh, also will tell you at the Hyatt Regency that his is the best show at this fest, too. So, is it? Hard to quantify that just yet. He's certainly one of the louder performers, every so often letting out a gutteral rebel yell that reminds one of Sam Kinison. And the format of his show, which includes a mindf$%k of an ending and a plea to audience members to return with their friends, would suggest that over the course of a monthlong run such as Edinburgh, would only gain momentum over time. Burns said he had to modify his show quite a bit for Montreal, although he still talks at length about U.K. attitudes toward terror and the Glasgow baggage handler who head-butted a terrorist at the airport. He also takes on race and sex. If you go to this show knowing the title of it and seeing his poster, please don't end up being offended. As he said at one point last night, "I'm normally so much more endearing than this." Burns has shows at 9 p.m. tonight and Saturday.

One guy who certainly is more endearing in this intimate theater setting is Patrice Oneal, who in his show, Positivity, is positively brilliant. After a 10-minute opening set from Joe DeRosa (who ripped into fast food), Oneal takes his seat on a stool and tells it like it is, covering views on the comedy industry, Obama and McCain, how he likes dogs more than people, on being a black spokesman on cable TV, diabetes, attitudes toward the Asians in his daily life, and finally how men and women get along (or don't). He notes upfront that he doesn't think he can get any smarter now that he's 38. He also acknowleged: "I believe what I say. That's my niche. It doesn't make me that much money." But it should win him many more fans. You can see Oneal working the road in comedy clubs, and every so often as a special guest in theater and TV shows. But this smaller theater really works to Oneal's advantage, letting him ease back and work at his own pace, without having to deal with either the mechanics of a club show or the size of a large audience. Oneal performs again at 11 p.m. tonight and Saturday. I hope and trust someone works out a plan for Oneal to work venues like this more often.

The view from Bonnaroo

Sure, Bonnaroo was almost a month ago, but we're now being treated to some nice photographic representations of how comedy has become a part of this burgeoning national music festival in Tennessee. Louis CK was nice enough not only to share some artistic photos he shot from the set of his upcoming movie with Ricky Gervais, but also of his writing friend and comedy star Chris Rock, who performed on the main stage at Bonnaroo, essentially "opening" for Metallica in front of an estimated 65,000. That's a lot of people to tell jokes to at one time. Go to CK's site to check out all of his photos. Here is a backstage look at what Rock saw:

Mike Birbiglia, in his new installment of his secret public journal, includes a blurry photo of him inside the comedy tent at Bonnaroo, which appears to be a fairly large venue for comedy as well. Enjoy!

Mike Birbiglia on The Michael Showalter Showalter Show

Suppose we should include this video in our historical archives, shall we? Even though watching it, it feels as if this video had been shot months ago, based on their own discussion. Anyhow. Here it is. Mike Birbiglia, reluctant guest on The Michael Showalter Showalter Show.

See more funny videos at CollegeHumor

Mike Birbiglia's birthday in Central Park

Comedy Central's Comedy Central Park was such a big success last Friday that by the time I got to the outdoor venue, there was a line to get into the line to get into the place to see Stephen Lynch, Mike Birbiglia and Julian McCullough. You could hear them just fine from a football field away, but you really had to be there to see it. I'm not a big fan of outdoor comedy as a general rule, but Comedy Central Insider's recap with photos sure makes it look like it was a lot of fun for the 5,000-plus in attendance for the free show. Bonus, it was Birbiglia's birthday. And they gave him pizza cake! See!

Free outdoor comedy in NYC

Summertime, and the comedy is easy to find, even outside here in New York City.

Central Park SummerStage offers its first "Comedy Central Park" of the season tonight with Stephen Lynch, Mike Birbiglia and Julian McCullough. It's free!

Down at Tompkins Square Park, NY Laughs offers its second free summer of laughs, with shows June 29, July 13, July 26, Aug. 10, Sept. 19 and Sept. 28. Ted Alexandro kicks things off in the first show, which has an early start time of 6 p.m.

Big benefit comedy show tonight in NYC

Almost missed this entirely somehow...but tonight, as in an hour from now, doors open at 7 p.m. at the Knitting Factory in NYC, there's a comedy benefit for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society featuring Todd Barry, Eugene Mirman, Leo Allen, John Mulaney, Max Silvestri, Seth Herzog, Andy Blitz, Daniel Dratch, Mike Birbiglia, Jim Gaffigan and more? Get out of town. No, stay in the city and head on over and donate $20 to the cause. Here's a link.

Reviews from Bonnaroo

I didn't make it Bonnaroo this weekend, but thousands of other music and comedy fans did. And more than a few of them already have weighed in with their opinions of the massive Tennessee festival.

Stereogum took plenty of pics, loved Chris Rock, thought Reggie Watts was "custom built for a music festival setting." Entertainment Weekly also thought Rock fared well on the main stage "opening" for Metallica on Friday night. The AP provides a more basic overview from Friday day and night, but followed up with a more thorough account and a quote from Louis CK: "60,000 people is too many for stand-up...even if 40,000 people love you, you're still bombing really hard." David Carr of the New York Times was among those who felt Chris Rock had a more difficult time getting his jokes across to the hipster rock kids and Southerners. A reporter from Atlanta's Creative Loafing laughed a lot and enjoyed the A/C in the comedy tent, but laughed hardest at an audience member who started peeing everywhere during the show.

The guys from Human Giant also were blogging from Bonnaroo (read Aziz, read Paul, read Rob?) and hosting shows for Funny or Die.

New 23/6 investigation: "Exposed"

The political parody site, 23/6, opens up an investigative reporting wing with this new series, Exposed. In the first episode, political "comedian" Barry Goldstein gets his comeuppance. With cameos by Michael Showalter and Mike Birbiglia, shot in part at Union Hall in Brooklyn. Enjoy.

236.com: Exposed
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