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Last Comic Standing 7: The NYC auditions, Part Two

In real life, maybe you audition a few months ago for a comedy competition that's going to be televised everywhere in America and beyond. Maybe your audition goes well. Maybe it goes well enough that you get asked to perform again at a live audience showcase, and then that goes well enough that you receive a red-ticket envelope to perform again in Hollywood. So maybe, just maybe, you're excited to see yourself on television and so are your friends, family and loved ones. So what happens when you and they turn on the TV and, an hour later, are wondering, did we and they blink and miss you? Hold that thought.

Because we're living by TV producers' rules. And in Last Comic Standing's seventh season, even when they say it's not business as usual, it's still show business. Last week, they edited the New York City auditions together to allow some comedians to get better treatment than they should have, while putting others in the background to tease you. What's doing for round two in NYC?

Well, first, host Craig Robinson tells us what happened previously on LCS, which was that nine comedians received tickets to the semifinals. Wait a minute! Nine??? That cannot be right, no matter how you edit it, because they let 12 people through on the night I watched live and in person, and apparently another 12 in the other showcase, so already, you and I know that there are going to be some comedians who were happy a few months ago, but who are going to be much less happy tonight.

Cue the actual and the artificial tension!

Brian McKim -- for people born before the Y2K bug wiped out the first version of the Internet, you may know him as "The Male Half" of Shecky Magazine -- gets the first uncredited one-liner of the evening, followed by a montage of comedians we should expect to be seeing later in the hour. By the way, if anyone has been watching all of the pre-season promos, Robinson is sneaking in his proposed catchphrase mantra for the season: "Be about it!"

We officially start the night off with Jerry Rocha, from Dallas, who says he has been a professional stand-up for eight years, and vows to hug anyone and everyone if he doesn't advance. He jokes with the judges about his racist uncle who doesn't quite get racial jokes. Our judges are given the superimposed title of "Comedy Jurist" this evening, which sounds much more foreboding than before, when they were judges. Now they're judges and jury? Me no get it. But me still likey Andy Kindler, Natasha Leggero and Greg Giraldo, so me no stop recapping. Calise Hawkins apparently is from Illinois (I know her as a Jersey girl, where she lives now, while you simply know her as a single mother with a big Afro!), and she takes us into her home with her daughter, and how adorable are they? Kindler isn't a big fan of her material about a homeless guy on the subway, but he and Giraldo both think she's a good performer, and Leggero enjoyed it, so Hawkins gets another chance to perform. Mike Vecchione jokes about his New York City cop look, and I know and you know and we know that he is funny, and even Leggero, who happened to see Vecchione the other night at the Comedy Cellar agrees. Who wants a pretzel?

Zed is the future of stand-up comedy? Somebody better tell Ron Lynch about this competing comedy robot. "Is this a character you're doing?" Giraldo asks. A woman has a whip on the sidewalk. For some reason. Kindler talks about clowns and jugglers, and jokes about all comedians starting out as novelty acts. You remember Lenny Bruce the sword swallower, right? Kindler prefers seeing a comedian sweat. Take that, deodorant ad!

Kyle Grooms doesn't have to worry about that. He did an Obama impersonation in the early TV ads for this season, and he does it for the judges, too. Giraldo says he is not a fan of impersonations but knows that that's not a big part of Grooms' act, so no worries. He's through.

LiveTweeting the Oscars

Has livetweeting replaced liveblogging as the way to share the experience of watching TV events? If you have no idea what the words in that sentence mean, then, well, let me explain. TV is an abbreviation for television. Oh, comedy. But seriously, Nia Peeples. What happened to her? She was one of the 100 most beautiful People in the world last year, according to People who know Peeples, and I learned that after watching the Flash intro to her site that opens with a quote from Jacques Cousteau. True story! I could not have told you all of this in one Twitter because of the 140-character limit, and that gets me back on message. Twitter! Earlier this month, I found myself among several comedians and journalist types who enjoyed the Grammys even more than usual by providing and sharing our running commentaries via Twitter. The future must be now.

For the Academy Awards, the people who own the best comedy domain name for collecting page views -- Comedy.com -- and their stand-up comedy blog, The Laugh Track, have set up a group Twitter account @watchwithcomics. Don't know yet who will be participating in that, but if you would like to follow along or contribute your own brief bursts of wit, then have at it. Should be fun. I'm most likely going to be occupied Sunday night, but can tell you that Twitter made me enjoy the Grammys much more than I otherwise would have. Even when the tape-delayed West Coasters joined in three hours late. Fortunately, that shan't be a problem with the Oscars, broadcasting live for Hollywood at 5 p.m. Pacific (8 p.m. Eastern) on Sunday.

And here, thanks be to comedians Sara Benincasa and David Cope, is a way for you to enjoy Oscar-nominated film The Reader, forever to be known now as The Hot Illiterate Nazi. Enjoy!