There is a comedian that I love, that I follow and make sure to get tickets right away to see. He is very famous among comedians, but sometimes I have to explain who he is. His name is Emo Philips, and Jay Leno actually introduced him on his show as "The best joke writer in the country". Emo is mostly recognized as the Woodshop Teacher from the Weird Al Yankovic (not pronounced YankoviCH, but YankoVICK, I hate it when people say his name with the viCH, lol), movie UHF. He accidentally saws his thumb off with a table saw. He has a weird voice, but his jokes and delivery are so great. He is by far the king of one-liner jokes. I could do a full blog post about Emo Philips. I won't in this one, but suffice it to say, he's my all-time favorite, just barely ahead of Steven Wright. I will post two videos here with some of their stuff.
Steven's delivery is dead pan the whole time, but man, he makes Dead Pan into an art form. The thing about both Emo Philips and Steven Wright are clean. Emo might make a joke here or there that are a little dark, but nothing dirty.
A word about dirty or "blue" comedy. When I was doing improv for the ten years I did improv, (I actually hope I can do it again with a new group), the theater we performed at, The Empress Theatre in Magna, Utah, forbid us to make dirty jokes or swear, and getting started, was hard. There were a few games that we wanted to play where we knew the object was to make innuendos or things like that, but we didn't play those games, but I feel like the comedy we produced without being dirty or using bad language actually pushed us to be more creative, and we had tons of hilarious content that wasn't dirty or used bad language. Just talking about Emo Philips, I remember seeing him live, well, my family and I have been to see him a few times, including last year, he said "Using dirty language to make jokes for comedians is like a martial artist that uses a gun to kill people." Maybe I live in a part of the world with a high LDS population, but I've seen some acts that were dirty, and I remember everyone would laugh because they were uncomfortable, so they really weren't real laughs. Cleaner comedy pushes the art forward by making the comedians search for material that everyone can enjoy. I love sharing stuff with my family and friends, like I do with this blog, and it sucks when I see something really funny I want to share, but I can't share the clip because really bad language was used, and I know my family and friends would be upset, and uncomfortable, if I shared something. I don't really listen to comedians that use a lot of blue comedy. However, if there is a one-liner joke that isn't dirty, but leads you to think of what could have been said, I'm okay with that. Also, sometimes when my family and I are playing the video/cell phone game Quiplash, we will make some tongue in cheek innuendos, but nothing dirty per se'.
There are a lot of great comedians out there, but there are some really famous comedians that I actually don't like or understand. Not because they are dirty, but because of the way they deliver their jokes. I]m not going to mention any, because I've upset friends or family members by telling them that I think a particular comedian isn't, and we argue over it. I just don't find them funny, but comedy is subjective. Also, sometimes while I watch TV and I see a sketch comedy show, like Saturday Night Live,(I love classic Saturday Night Live), and the sketches and situations really aren't funny. Sometimes the newer and current SNL shows have a funny sketch here and there, but most of them are stupid. Sometimes I feel like I could meet with a couple of my friends from improv and write better sketches or situations, and the shows like SNL and other sketch comedy shows don't seem as smart or impressive. I'm not saying that like I am bragging. I'm saying it to insult what sketch comedy has become. Like I say, there are some genuinely funny sketches on those shows, but not like it used to be.
When my dad was playing baseball in college, he went down to Las Vegas to play baseball, and his friends and he went to see Steve Martin live, which would have been so awesome, but my dad showed me a video on YouTube that was played while they were waiting for the show to start, It's a short film that won a lot of awards, including an Oscar nomination called The Absent-Minded Waiter. I will post it below. It's so freaking fun. You have to check it out! It's just a few seconds short from being eight minutes long.
Some of my newer favorite comedians also include Demetri Martin, who is usually clean, but dabbles with some bad language everyone now and again, is great and I also love Josh Blue. In a previous post, I talked about how the best comedy usually comes from the insecurities and problems you find in yourself, and then have the guts to make fun of yourself for them. Josh Blue got his start on Last Comic Standing, where he won the competition that season, and he has Cerebral Palsy, and he makes fun of all of the insecurities and situations he encounters while being disabled. He came here to Salt Lake City, and I didn't go because half was I needed the money for more important things, but the website also said it was a "Blue Set", which means, his act was dirty. I was bummed out, but I was even more bummed out when I found out, he just came here about a month ago to Dry Bar Comedy Club, which bans dirty comedy, and some big talents have come through and performed down there in Provo because they love the idea that there's a comedy club that doesn't book dirtier acts.
The awesome thing about Dry Bar Comedy is the fact that they have a free app on iPhones, and probably on other cell brands that aren't Apple related, or you can go to YouTube and watch the previous headliner act. So, Josh Blue was here two weeks ago, and they posted the video on their app, and YouTube channel, and I highly suggest you watch it. It's about 24 minutes long. It probably would have only been a 20 minute set, but the audience was laughing so hard at a couple of jokes, that he waited for them to stop laughing enough for him to continue his act. It's fantastic. He always makes fun of being disabled, but he takes it to an all new level. He is a very talented comedian, and I give him props for being able to take a very hard disabling situation and make fun of himself the way he does. He's easy to love, but the video I will post is from Dry Bar, where it's clean, but if you watch other videos on YouTube, you might run into some bad language here and there.
The title of this blog post is a direct quote from Josh Blue's Dry Bar performance. He continues with it saying "So try another house!"
That's all I have for tonight. I really hope you check out the videos and have a good laugh. It seems that with how terrible this year has been, finding anything to laugh at is gold. I hope you are all doing well and hope that the magic of the holiday season is finding you. The holidays have a reputation of being both great, and also very depressing, and I hope you all are feeling great. Keep your masks on in public, and be kind to everyone. Uncky Nate loves you! Goodnight!
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