My last post and comedy albums

So the last thing I posted was an experiment, and I'm not quite happy with it. I was orally dictating the words into the voice keyboard, and...I'm not as good at saying things as writing them. I guess it's kind of always been that way. I've long admired my dad for being a good storyteller, and I've...worked at it, but it's just not there. Not to the level I want it to be, anyhow.

So I'm going to go back and edit the shit out of that post. Feel free to read it again in a bit, because I'm a good writer and editor, just not quite there with storytelling.

As an addendum to that last post, by the way, let me say this: my family is also responsible for my sick sense of humor. From the time I stole Eddie Murphy's "Delirious" out of my parent's room as an 8 year-old, to the time I sneaked off with Andrew Dice Clay's "The Day the Laughter Died" at 12, I've always been into some pretty fucked-up, hilarious stand-up comedy.

Eddie Murphy has what I consider the best ten minutes of comedy ever performed. That is a lofty statement, but the routine, called "The Barbecue," makes me laugh hard even now 24 years later, when I know what jokes are coming. It's a perfectly paced story, and Murphy's timing has never been better. Charlie Murphy came out on Chappelle's show and told some hilarious stories about Prince and Rick James, but that only made us temporarily forget how truly great his brother was in the 80s.

I'm Gumby, damnit.

But for me, the greatest comedy album of all time remains "The Day the Laughter Died." I know that might shock some of you. Andrew Dice Clay has taken on this reputation of having been an agent provocateur, someone who was shocking for the sake of shocking, but in reality he was a smart comedian, and in later years a great father who dropped out of the limelight to raise his two children following a nasty divorce.

And I know, I know. Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Woody Allen, Lenny Bruce, Chris Rock, Louis CK...there have been some great comedians putting out amazing work over the years. Let me make my case, though.

Andrew Dice Clay is not as dumb as he seems. When he mispronounces a word, he's doing it on purpose. That is a character he's portraying on-stage. A lot of people might not get that, but...well, hell. Richard Pryor wasn't the guy he was on-stage, either. Go check out some interviews.

Anyway. It's always been fascinating (even when I was 12) to hear Dice drop the facade a couple times on this album. At one point he started going over his notes and half-mumbles under his breath, "So I thought at this point...subsequently...that we would..." It was such a small thing, but I knew even as a dimwitted 12 year-old that those weren't the words of Dice, but the actor portraying Dice. It was like overhearing something you weren't supposed to.

The album was recorded over the holidays on a weeknight. Dice knew he was going to get a shitty audience, and...well, he got one. That was by design. I think he knew the arenas he was filling with his comedy were great and all, but also kinda bullshit. He wanted to go back to his roots and...on purpose, mind you...eat his balls in front of a small club audience. Well, mission accomplished. And it was fucking great.

The album is a brilliant deconstruction of comedy from top to bottom. Near the end he goes into this rant about how he doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. And then in the ultimate explanation of everything comedy is, he links the words "hour" and "back" together in a brilliant, absurdist/surrealist bit that describes comedy at the most basic level. "You don't know why you're laughing, but you are. It's because I'm funny."

And that, my friends, is comedy. He's spouting nonsense, but because of his timing and phrasing, the audience is laughing hysterically in spite of themselves, with no idea what the fuck he's saying. This was a deconstruction of comedy back to when we lived in caves, the most thorough look at comedy's DNA at the cellular level.

Sometimes the clown doesn't get to laugh. This was Andrew Dice Clay laughing at the clowns. Showing them why they were clowns. Showing the audience why things were funny, but also how nothing could be funny. The laughter between the jokes. It was free-form jazz with implied notes between the notes.

Sometimes people look at Andrew Dice Clay like he's crude and simple, but he had us sized up from the beginning. It's just nobody ever bothered to ask.

I'll see you around.