the comic's comic

Chris Rock plays MSG tonight

It's New Year's Eve, and Chris Rock will perform tonight at Madison Square Garden. As the New York Times goes out of its way to mention, Rock's routine doesn't just magically appear. He actually works on his jokes. More than once. No, really! He does.

For me, the money quote comes later in the NYT story, in which Rock talks about seeing Eddie Murphy perform. “There were moments you could hear a pin drop, and that’s really what it’s all about,” he said. “Anybody can just say stuff and get people to scream. If you’re really good, you can get them to be quiet. Quiet is true ownership of the room.”

Silence? Yes. Silence means they're not just listening but also paying attention to you in between laughs. It makes me wonder, of course, about a guy like Dane Cook, who also played Madison Square Garden this year. Cook's audience is full of screamers. Does this mean that Cook, often described as a rock star of comedy, doesn't really own the room?

I had the chance to see Chris Rock's first theater show in November in Las Vegas, and also saw him a couple of times this summer at the Comedy Cellar in unannounced sets, in case you want to know what's been on his mind.

My year in interviews

Before I get to recapping the year in comedy, circa 2007, let's look back at some of my more illuminating, insightful and interesting comedy interviews from the year.

My sit-down with Ricky Gervais has to take the top spot in my mind, because his strongly held opinions on sticking to your creative guns and not sacrificing your beliefs in your own sense of humor (and humour) are words that any creative artists -- whether they're comedians, musicians, writers or actors -- can live by.

A close second, then, has to have been my September face-to-face with Dane Cook. Arguably the biggest headliner in the country this year and last, in terms of tickets and CDs sold, Cook met me in a Manhattan hotel lounge as part of his promotional tour for Good Luck Chuck. But we barely talked about the movie, instead tackling every question you've probably wanted to hear Cook answer, and then some. He even brought up Louis CK!

Speaking of whom, Louis CK was just one of the many other bright lights of comedy I got to talk to at length in 2007 -- the others included Nick Swardson, Christian Finnegan, Jim Gaffigan, Michael Ian Black, Eddie Brill, Bob Saget, Artie Lange, Doug Benson, Damon Wayans, Charlie Murphy, Frank Caliendo and Tim Minchin. Of course, there were hundreds of other comedians I got to witness and talk to this past year, and hopefully, I'll get to tell you more about all of them in 2008.

Dane Cook as "Bill Hicks Lite"???

Dane Cook recently brought his "Rough Around the Edges" arena tour of greatest hit bits and new material to Dallas, where about 13,000 fans screamed their approval. But Matt Weitz, writing for the Dallas Morning News, had a slightly different take on Cook and his comedy. I'm going to give you the quote now and let you digest it, then when you're ready, click on for his full review.

OK? Here's the quote, italics mine, on how Weitz describes Cook: "It is a freshness, however, that doesn't necessarily translate beyond a more established comedy fan's tendency to view his routines as sort of a derivative Bill Hicks Lite."

Really? Bill Hicks? Are you sure he wasn't thinking of Denis Leary? Leary and Cook are both from Boston, so maybe that was the confusion. Because I'm fairly sure comedy fans don't tend to put Cook and Hicks in the same conversation. Or did I miss Cook's one-hour special on smoking and the evils of advertising because I was watching him shoot a cashew off of his penis in the BK Lounge? Anyhow... Here's the rest of his review.

Exclusive: Dane Cook answers his critics

The last time Dane Cook and I talked at length face-to-face, we were in his dressing room backstage at Boston's TD Banknorth Garden, minutes before he'd perform for two sold-out arenas of screaming fans for his HBO special, "Vicious Circle." At the time, it was the biggest night of his life. He seemed pretty calm and content that night.

Earlier this week, we met again, this time in a hotel lounge in Midtown Manhattan. And this time, Cook's in a different place. He's now trying to becoming a movie star. He has more than 2.1 million MySpace "friends." Yet he also is at the center of a nasty backlash, both from within the comedy community and from the mainstream media, who use his name as a punchline for things that are wrong about comedy. Perhaps for the first time, Cook decided to address it all (even Louis CK!). Part of our interview appeared in the New York Daily News. But here's the full interview, in which fans and foes alike should get some rare insight into what this comedian and fledgling actor/musician is really thinking.

You’re kind of inescapable at this point.
“Now more than ever. The other night I was at a Red Sox game in Boston and a commercial came on for Good Luck Chuck and then a commercial came on for the MLB stuff (he's the face of baseball's Actober promotions) and then a commercial came on for Dan In Real Life. And I was throwing out the first pitch of the game, so I was on SportsCenter or whatever it was that night, and I remember sitting there, thinking like, wow, I remember a time when I was sitting in my no-room apartment, and wondering geez, am I ever going to be able to get my face out there and get people into my stuff.”

Is this a surreal experience for you, or maybe are you thinking it’s too much exposure?
“For the purpose of the movie and what I want to be doing right now, I don’t feel like I’m out there too much. I feel like you want to get as much face time. That is the key right now. To get people into your movie, you’ve got to be out there. The awareness has to be up. It’s working. I definitely can see it through my emails or people who are aware of Good Luck Chuck. It was really part of the plan, when MLB came, I thought maybe this might be a situation where somebody like yourself might say 'Is this too much?', but I looked at it as everything is coming to a head. And it is surreal, but at the same time, it is beneficial.”

How hard has it been to make the transition from stand-up to movie leading man? Most comedians who do it first become sitcom stars, and the only person I can think of off hand who jumped straight to movies was Steve Martin with The Jerk.
“He’s really the guy who I wanted to emulate. I really watch movies like The Jerk or Planes, Trains and Automobiles – one of my favorites – and he had been well known for making SNL appearances and things of that nature. I really admired how Steve Martin handled his career. And so I wanted to do whatever I could to make those steps into bringing my comedy fans into film. Certainly I’d cite him as somebody who meant a lot to me as a young’un.”

But Martin brought his comic persona fully into The Jerk. It has taken you until the second half of this movie, Good Luck Chuck, for people who were fans of you as a stand-up comedian to see that same person on film. Do you agree?
“I definitely do. Movies like Employee of the Month, or even some of the things from Mystery Men, or even Mr. Brooks, which was a departure into dramatic, those were all stepping stones and certainly things I looked upon as being beneficial in helping to structure my approach to acting. But Good Luck Chuck is really the first script that I ever read that I thought, you know what, I could really take this character, and I could start off as the everyman, and by that midpoint, kind of unleash myself and allow myself to use the physical comedy, little tools and techniques I learned in the stand-up world that I know also are appealing to my fans, that comedy fans – and like you noticed, kind of go from zero to 60, but still tell a story and have a beginning, middle and end with this Charlie Logan character.”

Was the studio OK with that? Were they gung ho about letting you be you? Did they try to rein you in?
“No, no. If anything, I’ve worked with Lionsgate. And my next film, it’s the first film my company is producing, and I’m producing it with Lionsgate…
Is that Bachelor No. 2?
“Yes. With Good Luck Chuck, they basically came to me and said, ‘We’re going to stay out of your face. You do your thing. We know we have a great script written by Josh Stolberg, we know we have a director who is tenacious and really wants to get in there and make you look like a hero, and you now you have a great co-star in Jessica Alba, also somebody who hasn’t had that experience of being seen in a comedic light.’ So that was great because I also felt like I was introducing Jessica to an audience in a way they’ve never really experienced her before. But for me personally, I do feel like Good Luck Chuck is the first thing I can point to – maybe Adam Sandler would point to The Waterboy or Jack Black in School of Rock – you know, they had work before that, but that’s the one I can finally look and say, this is me given permission to really take you to a new place with a character but also kind of go home with physical comedy.”

Your longtime friend and comedian Robert Kelly has a funny cameo with you in this film, and also a part in your next project?
“We filmed it already. He plays a bouncer at a strip club that Kate (Hudson) and I go on a horrible date to. So, yeah, being able to work with your friends that you also feel like maybe haven’t had the shots. That’s something that the producer side of my business I really feel privileged to help people out like Bobby who have been pounding the pavement for so many years. If I didn’t see it, then eventually other people would see it, because he’s such a funny cat.”

You also had producers hold an audition showcase in Boston for comedians to be in your next movie. What came of that?
“We’ve got a couple of guys. I just worked with Tony V, he’s in there. He plays a cook in the kitchen that I have some dealings with.”
Much like you were a cook in the kitchen in Waiting…
“Yes. Floyd! He has a sort of similar role in there. He’s my partner in crime in this kitchen scene. Al Del Bene, who is my first real friend, and is really getting himself back into stand up comedy in a whole new way, he’s going to come in and play a role. Hopefully, Gary Gulman’s going to get in there for a part.”

Tell me about your music. I know you sang one song at the end of your Vicious Circle taping. You’ve got the second single out. You’re trying to be like John Mayer and John Mayer is going out at the Comedy Cellar (he laughs) and trying to be like you.
“And we both have Jessica (Simpson), uh yes, in common.”
What’s going on?
“I always looked at stand-up comedy as a vehicle to many places where I can be creative. Yes, I’m primarily known as a stand-up comedian/actor. But people don’t know that all my CD designs, I create. I love doing graphic design and everything from the fonts to the colors, I’m there creating posters. Even the movies, Good Luck Chuck and Employee, I’m part of that process. I live to be dabbling in something creatively. Played guitar since I was a kid. I think music was as important to me as comedians were. I grew up in a family that loved music. We listened to The Beatles, you know, we listened to Hendrix, we listened to Fleetwood Mac, we listened to everything. Although I understand there’s a stigma with can a comedian be funny or put out a serious song. I don’t really think of the ramifications of it. I know people are going to bag on me for it. I know there’s going to be people out there who hate it. I know there’s going to be people out there who laugh at it for the wrong reasons, but I’ve also received emails from people who said 'That song made me feel like I want to be alive – ‘Forward’ in particular. That song made me feel like I want to move forward in my life, that there’s something I need to do.' If it affects, you know, a handful of people like that, and it meant something to me to record it because I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote all those lyrics out, and maybe that’s all it’ll be. But I’m certainly not saying I need to be John Mayer. It’s a hobby. If I float music out there from time to time, and it might be like 'I’ll Never Be You,' which has kind of a Tenacious D vibe, or it might be 'Forward,' or it might be something else, but you know what, people should always expect the unexpected with me. I really want to push myself in many different ways creatively, and I know I’ll take the hits, but that’s OK.”

Does that make you understand why Mayer would want to do comedy?
“I just think creative people want to be creative. It’s, I think it’s almost insulting, to say to someone, oh you can be funny but you can’t play a song. I really do. I think to confine somebody, to say, that’s what you’re known for. Dance like that. I think it’s tough. It’s not to say there hasn’t been people out there. You might look at Eddie Murphy and say, oh, man, 'Party All the Time,' why did he do that to himself? But at the time, everybody loved that song. We’re all ragging on Eddie now, but at the time, everybody was, (sings) 'My girl wants to' and for a summer or maybe two, he made people feel good with a pop song, that of course now is hilarious, when you look back because of the video and stuff like that. But I’m not a person who thinks of the reaction to stuff. I think about the creation of things. I think of the creation of a Web site, I make it. I think of the creation of a portal to fans, MySpace, I create it. I think of music, or I think of comedy, I’ve written films now. I have a thriller. I have a dramedy that I’m putting together with Disney. My brain just thinks creative – I have a sci-fi movie in the vein of Star Wars that, if I can ever greenlight an $80 million movie, I’m going to make someday. It has nothing to do with anything funny. It’s one of the weirdest scripts you’ll ever read. People will definitely accuse me of being on some sort of mind-altering substance, because it’s just really wacked out and out there. But that’s the way my brain clicks. That’s what I do. And I am willing to take the odd potshots as long as people are willing to give it a listen. I also know that my fans, I’m cool with the idea of people checking out for a while. That’s OK. I’m not saying you’ve got to stay with me for the whole ride. We jokingly call it the Dane Train. I’d always say get aboard the Dane Train. But there’s many stops. If you want to bail for a little bit because you’re not into a song or a specific style of comedy, you know, beat it for a little bit and then poke your head back in in a while, and maybe I’m doing something then that gets your goat. I’ve really angled myself over the last four or five, actually more like seven years, through my posts on my Web site and through podcasts, you can hear it, I say I’m trying new things, you guys. If you’re a fan of mine, that’s why. It’s not just because the jokes are funny. It’s because I’m a risk-taker. And I’m a producer with my fans. It’s always about we. Read my news blogs and it’s about me. Look what we did. We got on the Billboard charts, number four. I did that because I have such a great rapport with my fans that I truly believe when I asked them, can you please go and get that CD today and that’ll change my career – that changed my career in a day. I hit No. 4 on the Billboard charts because 89,000 people went out and bought that unit because I asked them to. They know it. They write me back and say, 'Look what we did.' It’s a different approach to a career, but I think it’s the new approach to a career and I think that anyone who’s not being hands-on and thinking of it in the terms that I am, you’re doing yourself a disservice. I think it’s the new way that media’s going to be. I think it’s the new way that television and Internet is coming together. It’s changing. The way people get their movies is going to be changing. It’s all up for grabs and I want to be one of the way people that is right on the rim of that, sitting with my feet in the pool. And I’m willing to fail sometimes to do that. But that’s how I’m rolling.”

Taking potshots…it’s fascinating to me that you’re one of a handful of guys who has been broken huge in the past couple of years – there’s you, there’s Carlos Mencia and there’s Larry the Cable Guy. And yet despite the success you’ve all been hit by a backlash, both within the comedy community and by the mainstream press. All for different reasons. What’s it like for you to be in the middle of this? To have 2.1 million MySpace friends and at the same time be used as a punchline in magazine articles, much like Carrot Top, another guy who’s hugely successful in comedy.
“Obviously, I can’t speak for Larry or Carlos. I don’t really even know them well enough to comment on how they handle their business. I know with me, people are going to gun for you when you’re going up that ladder. People might look and say, oh, your trajectory! I look and say, it’s been 17 years that it’s been slow and steady wins the race. To have people coming out right now and being in attack mode, it’s in a very twisted way, it’s flattering. Because you know that the GQ editor, there’s going to be a new guy there in a few months, and he’s going to love you and he’s going to write an article about you and put you on the cover. Then six months after that the next guy’s going to think that you’re the worst thing ever. Rolling Stone did it to me. It was like they put me on the cover said funniest guy, genius marketer, then there was a guy who wrote an expose six months later, said I’m the worst thing to ever happen to comedy. I cut them both out, I framed them and I put them in my office. That’s what a career is."

"You certainly don’t expect to be everybody’s champion all the time. Most of it is superfluous. Some of the stuff that people are saying, as far as, you know, material with me. I just say, lookit, if you’re going to jump on that bandwagon and you’re going to say you took stuff from this guy or that guy. OK. Be willing to do your homework, and look at 17 years of comedy. Look at everything on those CDs. Not just what equals maybe a minute and 40 or 50 seconds of premises, not verbatim word-for-word comedy. So, and you’re really one of the first people that I’m actually talking to about it. I’ve touched on it on my Web site about the high road and why I don’t go near that. You can’t fight a lie, man. You just can’t. If I really dig down deep and I didn’t do it, I didn’t do it, you’re really done. You stay above it. The people who really really care and really want to believe that you’re not that guy, they’ll do the homework, and not just f---ing read Wikipedia. I mean they will do the work, and go, I’m looking at this guy. Did I steal from stores when I was a kid? No. Do I have a criminal record in any way of my life? Am I that kind of person? Look at a person’s entire history before you’re going to judge them on a few bits of material. And some of the people that have actually said some of those allegations against me? I still think they’re great comics. I don’t know what their motives are all the time. People are jealous. And I get it. I’ve been jealous, too. I’ve sat and watched other guys when I was sitting, playing videogames going, why don’t I have that? I work hard! I changed that thinking. I didn’t want to become a bitter, cynical type. I am by nature an optimistic person. I believe in people. I believe in the goodness in people. And I’m my father’s son. My father was always 'Dane, when you get to a certain level, they’re going to try to bring your feet out from underneath you. You’ve got to be ready for that.' So I’ve learned to hop when they go for the legs. And there’s not really much more I can say to it. I know what I am. Fans know what I am. And I think all that stuff will dissipate in time and what’s left will be the work."

The first time I saw you several years ago, at the Tempe Improv, you already had quickly sold out the entire weekend, young college fans adored you, and you’d meet with all of them in the lobby afterward for autographs and pictures.
“Well, that drives some people crazy. Just seeing that kind of success – I used to wish that comics were, I used to think, maybe comics are like athletes. You can beat somebody but then they’re going to come and when the interview happens they’re going to go, ‘He played a great game. I’ve got to give it to him.’ Not to say there isn’t a lot of great comics that are – Chris Rock called me after Vicious Circle. Probably the one call I’d want to just talk to me about my special and give me props. He shared some things with me that I will forever, you know, light up my memory banks. Steve Martin, I had a conversation with him after a set at the Comic Strip one night. You know, the guys that really know the game. Some of these guys on the other side looking on, who don’t know me personally, who’ve never said, let me ask you, let me sit down with you, never talked to me. And I’m not going to name names. I’m not going to even give them that. But we know. There are some big guys who’ve said certain things about me. And some of them I’ve gone to and sat down with, and talked to. I will say, Louis CK, I wrote Louis CK a letter. Louis CK wrote me a letter. I’m cool with Louis CK now. We hung out backstage at Comics Come Home, and I think we have a nice rapport. Do I think it sucks that I had to go through that rocky time, and having people saying that? Yeah. But it was going to happen, from somewhere somehow. There’s too much good happening to me, somebody had to come and blast me from somewhere. I told my family ‘Get ready, because it’s my turn to take some shots.’"

"But Louis CK is a great comic, and again, I’ve never spoken to this but, about those premises, some of those things were things I’d been doing for years. And certain people would come to me and go, ‘You were doing that in New York City too after that guy got hit by the car. What if he took it from you and put it on his CD?’ Never. Because I can look and say, if 10 comics watched a guy get hit by a car out here, right now, seven of them might go onstage that night and talk about the observational humor that they had. How many people have probably talked about it? It just happened that Louis and I had some parallel thinking. And when I look and go, maybe one night at the Cellar, he absorbed? No. I’m not going to go and blame him or say that at all, because I think he’s a great comic, and a great guy. And I hope to work with Louis CK on something someday. I hope we can put this behind us and actually do something good for the benefit of comedy. I mean, he’s a good guy.”

I saw another guy earlier this year who did essentially the same bit with the naming the kids strange sounds, and he did it for his Live at Gotham set for Comedy Central.
“I know the guy that you’re talking about, because I remember people talking about it.”
And I wondered why would you do that when that’s one of the bits that people claim you’ve stolen from CK?
“What’s going on? Right. But I’ll tell you who else did that bit. Steve Martin. And Louis loves Steve Martin, and I love Steve Martin. Now would I say, ‘Louis you stole that bit from Steve Martin?’ No! Absolutely not. And that’s one of these three little pieces of things, again. Just, I’ll say to anybody, you really want to know the truth? If you want to just hate me for the sake of hating me, you want to jump on this? Well, you’ve got a good excuse. But if you really want to know the real deal, listen to 'Harmful (When Swallowed),' listen to 'Retaliation,' watch Vicious and go, ‘Who the hell else is doing this B-and-E thing?’ My comedy is my thing. I have my own unique spin that I put on stuff. You can’t look at one little piece of something without looking at the whole thing.”

Talking about your self-promotion. You’ve got the normal ambitious schedule this week for Good Luck Chuck, then in a few weeks, it’s Dan In Real Life, but then a few weeks after that, you have a new CD/DVD from Madison Square Garden to promote. How will you handle it all?
“Richard Belzer, you can see, walking by.”
Belzer did walk past our window on the sidewalk on West 56th Street. If only he could weigh in, right?

“I’ve talked to Peter Hedges, and I’ve said, 'I’d love to do anything I can of course to do to help the film (Dan In Real Life).' Not that Steve Carell needs the help. Certainly he’s very viable and can do it on his own. But it’s a special movie. It’s got a great heart and a great story. So I’ll do what I can for the movie and right after that the CD comes out and I’ll also end up doing what will probably be my biggest tour to date. I haven’t put out the official press release so I don’t want to give away the secrets. Let’s just say it’s going to be huge. It’s going to be huge and I look forward to connecting with fans and getting the new material that I’ve been working on along with the material from the CD, across the country.”

What’s with all the new material? Most comedians don't burn through material as fast as you do.
“Because when I think of these things, they have a very short shelf life in my brain and I have to put them out there immediately. And once, it’s so strange because even if I do a show in front of 1,000 people, you might say, ‘Well, Dane, you could do that same joke for three years. Thousands of people haven’t seen it.’ Those people had either better come to that show or listen to that CD because I just want to move on. I like being fresh. I like being current with myself. And something happens to me where if I hold onto material for too long, I start to feel like I’m still in March when it’s October. You know, Jay-Z writes rhymes and I think of comedy. Honestly. There’s a scientist whose thing is writing hypotheses and I want to be out there every night putting something new onstage. So it doesn’t seem odd or bizarre to me in any way. It’s just the way I like to operate.”

So when’s the last time you got onstage?
“About a week ago. At the Comedy Connection. I did a pop-in, late, late late show. It was like, I think I hit the stage after midnight after the headliner both Friday and Saturday nights. We filmed all day both days, too. And I was dog tired. But I had a couple of ideas and the guys at craft service get tired of me trying my bits out on them.”

So how are you feeling about your career right now?
“With Good Luck Chuck, I was like, you’ve seen it, but I want to do anything I can to get people on board with this movie. I watched it last night (Sunday) we had the screening in Boston …it was the first time I’d really heard it – not in front of a screening crowd but a regular crowd of people…they were howling. It was so wonderful. I really, honestly, it’s like I felt like I’d arrived. I felt like this is finally my step into the kinds of films and comedies I want to do. I hope the movie gods enjoy the movie as much, and give us a great opening weekend so I can have a long run, but no matter what happens, I know how I felt, delivering that movie to those people last night. I pumped my fist in the air, I was like, I did it! This is what I set out to do. This is my Planes, Trains and Automobiles. It’s got the heart. You’re rooting for these two people – I’m rooting for me in it. I’m watching, going, I want these two to be together. And at the same time, a very simple equation, one I’ve always dealt with: laughter. I want to make you laugh. And there were so many LPMs in that movie. Laughs Per Minute. I felt like a winner.”

Are you going to be sweating out the box-office figures all weekend?
“I bounce back from anything, man. I don’t take good news to heart too much. I don’t take bad news to heart. I’ve leveled off. I really just want to do it, and then I move on. Do I want it to be a big success? Hell, yes. Do I want the movie to be able to afford me the possibility to greenlight other movies? Yes. For my company and for my creativity, yes, I want to win this weekend. I did the best that I could with it. I feel like the best of me is in there. And I’m not going to beat myself up if something slips up or doesn’t meet expectations. It’s a wait-and-see. The movie gods and it’s whatever the movie populace is digging, but I do know if they go to the movie, they’re going to laugh and they’re going to have a great time.”

What do you want Rolling Stone to be saying a few years from now about you?
“Interesting. I don’t think about what I want other people to say about me. I’d love to be looked on as a guy that takes risks and isn’t afraid to travel outside the wheelhouse. People know that I could do one particular thing in comedy and probably make a lucrative career out of it but I haven’t done that. I could’ve been hosting a prank show eight years ago. I could’ve been hosting most game shows that you know about. I said no to more stuff that came toward me with big big dollar signs attached, because I want to be a relevant entity in this industry. If anything that’s what I’d like for them to be looking at as I step into new arenas of producing, writing and directing. Yeah. That I’m not a one-trick pony. That I’m here to make my mark in several facets.”

A very Live At Gotham weekend

If you happen to visit New York City anytime soon, let me put in a word for a stop at the Maritime Hotel in Chelsea. Or is it the Meatpacking District? The site says it's in Chelsea, two blocks north of the Meatpacking District. Anyhow. I've already gotten away from the point. Point is, if you have several hundred dollars per day to blow on lodging here, you're likely to have casual encounters with celebrities. And not just all of the stand-up comedians who stayed at the Maritime last week. In a period of less than 24 hours, I exchanged words with Michael Stipe (whom I now realize was hanging around for Monday's induction of R.E.M. into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!) and saw Tate Donovan hanging around in the lobby. I believe my exchange with Stipe went something like this:

5:50 p.m. Saturday, comedian Dan Boulger and I head down the steps and out of the Maritime. Just then, Stipe is heading inside. We almost collide. "Oh...hi!" I say. "Hello," he replies. Boulger stares oddly. And that was that. Stipe wore some sort of beret and was sporting a grayish brown beard.

And now for the rest of the weekend story.

Boulger invited me to hang out for Saturday night's tapings of Live at Gotham. During the day, all of the stand-up comics get to run-through rehearsal. They'll put anything on the teleprompter, even a word-for-word transcript of a comedian's routine. Odd to think you could get on TV and simply read your stand-up routine. Who does that? It's odd just to see a comic read off their notes during a major set. But I suppose Comedy Central might also offer this service just in case a comic gets a case of the TVs and freezes up. Plus, it turns out the teleprompter also can be used as an alternative to the light, sending messages such as "one minute left!" As for audience members, they're told no food, no bathroom breaks, the better to keep disruptions to a minimum. And the production hired a special audience coordinator to hand out specific seat assignments. Apparently, seating a comedy show can be looked at as a science. Put the best-looking best laughers front and center. Put industry people in the back corner. Audience members also got instructions on what not to wear (no logos, no whites). And then, as talent manager Max Burgos pointed out before the first taping began: "The smoke machine really does it, man." Suppose it adds an old-school comedy club feel, although it'd really be old-school if they let you smoke. The tapings also have an official warm-up comedian. Dan Ahdoot more than honorably worked this non-televised job, working the crowd (and adding another several minutes of material when the second show incurred technical difficulties) and helping establish pre-show shots of crowd applause and laughter.

The first show's lineup: Gerry Dee, Pete Dominick, Lisa DeLarios, John Ramsey, Bryan Callen, with host Jim Breuer.

The second show's lineup: Michael Kosta, Julie Goldman, Dan Boulger, Eric Andre, John Hoogasian, Brian Scolaro, with host Jeffrey Ross.

Each comic got to work out about 10 minutes of material, knowing that Comedy Central might edit out a couple of minutes for the Web and other material for ad time. I'd think they might cut Callen's bit about wanting to change his own name to something along the lines of Meeeeowww Cah! (Um, didn't he see the whole online debate about Louis CK and Dane Cook?) Guess not. Also, Breuer had to come back onstage at the end of the first show for several attempts at pronounciating the Colbert Report. The second show had much more energy. Perhaps that had to do with the lineup. Goldman had so much more going on than when I'd seen her last year at a Laughing Liberally show at Jimmy Tingle's. Boulger, going up after her, looked nervous for the first time that I'd ever seen. Then came Andre, who blew the roof off the joint, took extra time out of his act to encourage the audience to make fart noises, just to see if Comedy Central would use it! Hoogasian, up next, tried to sound like Emo Philips but mostly sounded weird. And it seemed odd at the end when Scolaro went with a bit about cavemen having to determine what was edible (since in the previous show, Ramsey had a similar bit about the first guy to bite into a pineapple!). No matter. At least not for me to worry about. That's why they're on separate shows, right? Right. Anyhow, onto the after parties, first downstairs, and then out onto nearby streets and a place called Dusk which was small but had a good vibe, especially when a bunch of comedians and like-minded people took over the bar. Good times.

What's inside the mind of Mencia, anyhow?

Carlos Mencia’s “The Punisher” tour comes to Boston tonight for two shows at the Orpheum, where he’ll undoubtedly learn that in this town, “beaner” means something else entirely. The comedian formerly known as Ned Holness and I talked on the phone on Monday morning. His Comedy Central show, Mind of Mencia, finished its second season this summer as the network’s second most-popular program, and will return for a third season early in 2007.

It was before 9 a.m. when the phone rang. Mencia was ready and rarin’ to start talking. “I’m wired,” he said. He tried watching the “Star Wars” trilogy (Eps. 4-6) and “Angel” but still couldn’t relax. “I was watching ‘Charmed,’ and I said I suck, watching ‘Charmed’ in the middle of the morning and paying attention to the storyline.” He kept getting distracted by Alyssa Milano. “Maybe because I remember her as a little girl, it makes me fell dirty.” OK. Let’s talk about something else. He just celebrated his 39th birthday on Oct. 22. How was that? His tour was in Dallas that night.

“My wife came out,” he said. “They stopped the show, came out with a cake, sang Happy Birthday, and my whole vibe was, you’re ruining the show! Get the f— off my stage! You’re building a set, you’ve got these peaks and valleys…and then, bababababa! What the f— are you guys doing to me! It was good besides that. I’m a great showman. So I just care about the show.”

Do you think your comedy will translate as well up in New England as it does in California and the Southwest? Do different crowds react differently? “I don’t think so. At this point, I’ve been through the Midwest and through the Pacific Northwest. It doesn’t change. It really doesn’t. It’s not, I don’t know, it’s not ethnocentric in that way…I would’ve thought, like you, in Dallas, so many Latinos that it wouldn’t change the show.” But he added: “The diversity of my audience is so stunning now. It’s amazing. It’s beyond crossover. I’ve actually become a voice for white America. I’m stunned myself. It just seems no one wants to say the things that are on peoples’ minds, and it just seems to be resonating even more in the white communities than in the minority communities, which is really weird. From blacks and Hispanics, they’ve been saying ‘Tell it like it is, and thank you.’ But whites have been saying, ‘THANK YOU! We’ve been waiting to laugh at that for years’…it’s just this thing that’s been hitting home.”

He hasn’t been to Boston in quite some time. “At the Comedy Connection seven, eight years ago, maybe longer. It was a long time ago. It’s tough, though. It really is.” He explained: “When you’re at the level I was, before the TV show (Mind of Mencia)…you’re working 48 weeks a year, working hard, 50 weeks if you’re stupid like me. You go to a comedy club every six months, so you’re talking 25 clubs.” Which means his circuit skipped Boston for years.

“But I’m having fun. I’m having a lot of fun, because I’m doing something I haven’t done before. It feels good to be talking about something. As a minority comedian, quote unquote, it’s interesting to look at a time, to look around and see it’s not great to be a white American anymore…because you don’t have the same social rights as everyone else.” Color me curious. Go on. “Two black people who speak ebonics can go do the same joke and speak that way to each other, and not get sued. You make a white guy do that and he’s going to go to sensitivity training…whoa! And there’s a lot of stuff like that going on…It’s an interesting time, and I’m a part of that. I’m a part of talking about that.”

He contributed a short story to the new book, I Killed: True Stories of the Road from America’s Top Comics, about a gig in which he feared he would’ve gotten shot by Snoop Dogg’s posse after a show, except for the fact that Shaq was in the audience and stuck up for him. Does he fear any crowds now that he’s famous? Not really. “Of the hate mail I get that I answer, they return going, I was just pissed off when I wrote that.”

What about the backlash from other comics? Joe Rogan, took on Mencia online last year. Rogan isn’t the only comic who doesn’t like Mencia’s brand of comedy. Instead of asking about Rogan specifically, I asked Mencia about why the few stand-ups who’ve gotten big in the wake of Dave Chappelle (Dane Cook, Larry the Cable Guy and Mencia) all have major backlash issues within the industry. “It’s no different from every other comic who’s made it successful,” Mencia maintained. “The comedians that comedians think are great are either dead or not very popular, or very old. People go, ‘Mitch Hedberg, man, he was the greatest ever.’ DEAD. Or ‘Richard Pryor was the greatest.’ DEAD. But it’s the same thing, when Chris Rock did his thing, he was blahblahblahed, and black comics said he sold out…It’s going to breed hate and contempt from comics because of the way we are. We are egocentric. It’s all me-me-me-me-me-me-me.”

He knows what other comics are saying about Larry the Cable Guy, “his fans are stupid and they talk about redneck s—.” And about himself: “He pretends he’s Mexican and the Mexicans don’t even like that. But he’s Honduran.”

Believe it or not, when I talk to Dane or talk to Larry, we don’t even talk about that stuff, because it’s so benign to us. It’s par for the course,” he said. “I’m not worried when other comics don’t like me. I’m worried when people don’t like me. I’m not worried when critics say your show sucks. I’m worried when people say your show sucks. They’re the ones who make your show. They’re the ones who pay to see you, who go to see your movies.”

Related: Carlos Mencia’s home page.

SNL 32.1: Dane Cook/The Killers

Saving the best for last is not the phrase you want associated with Saturday Night Live. Alas, such was the case on the Sept. 30 32nd season-opener, hosted by Dane Cook. The final sketch of the night was a parody of the current Geico TV ads, with Andy Samberg playing the real-life customer and Maya Rudolph as Whitney Houston, his celebrity helper. It's not on YouTube yet (despite what Cook said in his monologue) but NBC has featured it online.

But back to the recap...
Season 32 begins with a "cold open" of an unwanted President Bush at a campaign for comptroller in South Carolina. I couldn't help but immediately think to Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, the Aaron Sorkin un-SNL show, and the scene in which Matthew Perry's character challenges the writers to come up with something fresher than a Bush-mocking "cold open" skit. But there you have it. I'm smelling a theme. That theme smells like stale (fill in the blank with anything you want, including the word stale).
Roll opening credits. They look nice and big and pretty.
What about your host Dane Cook? Does he look nice and big and pretty?
Well, he does jump into a crouching position. Then he grabs a mike to remind himself that he's a stand-up comic, not a TV host, and begins his monologue by defending himself against negative people. "Don't you try to bring me down, naughty people." Except isn't this negativity essentially the premise of EVERY Debbie Downer skit? Rachel Dratch isn't in the cast anymore, so who'll remember that? Oh. Right. Dane also uses a Danism (one of his words that sounds funny because he changes the word around) by saying, "N-U-T-O-matic" to describe the facial tells of women vs. men when they're lying. He also has a bit about when you hear someone committed suicide, you always think about happy memories of them, but want to know how they did it, and that leads to how everything you've ever wanted to see is on YouTube, with an obligatory miming of him punching a keyboard, and look, it's A:F6. (NOTE: As of Monday afternoon, there were 328 videos on YouTube claiming to be the A:F6 video! What lengths people will go to grab onto the gravy train!) Dane closes with a bit about a 217-car pileup, and how everyone is happy they're not at fault except for the last driver. Somehow, this joke sounds very familiar. But I digress.

Department of Homeland Security TSA skit. More absurd than funny. The cast makes this funnier than the material. This won't be the last time this happens.
"Hugo Chavez Political Roundup" on Venezuelan TV, with the leaders of Iran, Pakistan and North Korea (and a cameo from Saddam Hussein). Fred Armisen as Chavez and Amy Poehler as Kim Jong-Il are very funny and keep this skit afloat.
An SNL Digital Short — "Cubicle Fight" — Sorry. Better luck next week.
"Al Pacino checks his bank balance" — Um, why?
Weekend Update. A pre-Update skit with actual NBC anchor Brian Williams comes off well. The actual Update, with new co-anchor Seth Meyers, clocks in at about 15 minutes. Fifteen minutes?! With several sideshows, including Darrell Hammond as Clinton, Maya Rudolph as Condi Rice, Jason Sudeikis as Sen. George Allen and Andy Samberg as Dustin Diamond. They're all competent enough, but the material just doesn't support this loooooooong routine.
Dumb water guys. Even Dane Cook and Will Forte know how dumb this is, acknowledging it at the end of the skit in meta fashion. The only funny thing in the scene isn't even spoken. It's the offscreen antics, pushing more and more water bottles into the scene.
Farah Fawcett (Amy Poehler) is loose and funny, and having her stumble into the next skit is really kinda funny. But that next skit, about mean bouncers, just doesn't have a single laugh in it. Oh well. The Geico ad spoof with Samberg and Rudolph. Again, it's probably the funniest skit just on its own. So why didn't this open the show? Who knows.

Dane Cook on the night of "Vicious Circle"

I'd interviewed Dane Cook in 2005 upon the release of his breakthrough CD/DVD "Retaliation," but hadn't really talked to him in-depth in person until April 15, 2006, the night he'd tape two sold-out shows at Boston's TD Banknorth Garden for HBO's "Vicious Circle."

Cook took some time in his dressing room about an hour before the first of two shows to chat with me.

"Tourgasm" had been filmed but hadn't yet aired on HBO, but people took notice when "Retaliation" debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard charts, the highest ranking for a comedy disc since Steve Martin three decades earlier. And fans from across the country came calling to Boston to be part of his HBO special. Guys from Aerosmith showed up. Glenn Close brought her daughters, who were in awe of him. This was the biggest night of his career.

Are you nervous about tonight?

"I spent 15 years thinking this wouldn't happen. This is what I've always aspired to do. The ultimate plateau of comedy. So to actually be here, and be doing it, I feel very prepared. And so no, the nervous was not getting here. I just have to go out and have a blast, do the show."

Hear a portion of our interview archived here.

Cam Neely on Comics Come Home

Every fall, Bruins great Cam Neely brings some of the Hub’s funniest comedians onstage for Comics Come Home, with Denis Leary hosting his benefit for the Cam Neely Foundation for Cancer Care at Tufts-New England Medical Center.
Only now, Neely is a Hall of Famer.
Does Leary, who spoke at Neely’s induction ceremony earlier this week, have anything up his sleeve to commemorate the occasion here? "Not as far as I know,” Neely said, already chuckling at the notion.
"You know, I never know year to year,” he said. "I choose to do it that way so I’m just as surprised as anyone else.”
What makes Neely laugh?
"Anything from Don Gavin, where you really have to pay attention to what he’s saying, to a guy like Kenny Rogerson. He did a bit on the French and Lance Armstrong at Denis’ charity benefit on the Cape that was phenomenal. It was so hilarious. I don’t want to spoil it, but I hope he does it again,” he said.
"Obviously, Steve Sweeney, with the way he nails the different characters in Boston. Anything you can laugh about is generally my kind of humor.”
Does Neely get embarrassed anymore by what the comics might say about him?
"I certainly hope they’ve covered all the bases, in that regard,” he said. "But you never know with these guys.”
Any silly memories from past Comics Come Home?
"One year, when Dane Cook came out and had these sweat pants on, he ripped them off. It had snaps on the side. It caught everyone by surprise,” Neely said. "Another time, they had Bucky Dent show up. It was a year . . . where the stage looked like the Green Monster. That caught Denis big-time by surprise. He handled it well, though. His typical Bucky (bleepin’) Dent.”
So, hanging around with Leary and the other comics all these years has made Neely that much funnier, right?
"Um, no,” Neely said. "I learned a long time ago to try to not compete with their kind of humor.”

Comics Come Home XI, with Denis Leary, Lenny Clarke and other comics, 8 p.m. tomorrow at Agganis Arena, 925 Commonwealth Ave., Boston. Tickets, $30-$150, available via Ticketmaster. Or go to www.camneelyfoundation.org