Not Far Inferior to Don Rickles
Thursday, February 28, 2008
In 1997 I traveled by train from Chicago to New York with a friend of mine (we thought that, since riding the train was the more miserable experience, it would necessarily be cheaper than flying. It wasn't). We stayed with my friend Erin. She worked at a place called Catch A Rising Star, which was the place, we were impressed to learn, where some twenty years before Robin Williams got his start. When I caught one of the shows--Erin got us in for free--I was no longer quite as impressed. Catch a Rising Star was falling, leaving in its trail a lot of guys with shiny dress shirts and Kentucky waterfalls doing standup on the theme of, jer wife ever say this? and, d'ja ever notice? It was then that I formulated my opinion about comedy, which was that it wasn't funny. My love of folks like Richard Pryor, Don Rickles and Andy Kaufman only emphasized the fact that stuff like this was far inferior.
Well, Invite Them Up, which just had its last show around the corner from the Bookshop, is not far inferior to Don Rickles. It was a big show, and everyone seemed "on" (is that right? Do comedians say "on," anymore?) except for one comedianne, who got stuck on a plane somewhere and seemed not to have made it "on" at all. There was lots of the great, Kaufman-like "boring" comedy (a slow reveal, during tag-team stand up routine, that the comedians were in fact shilling for Mike Hukabee, etc.) which boredom, I suppose, is now schtick but perfectable schtick, so still interesting. Besides seeing Eugene Mirman and Bobby Tisdale every Wednesday night, I'll mostly miss all the comedian shop-talk in the bar.
posted by Greg Purcell @ 12:46 PM,
