Day: January 15, 2008

Ah, Facebook. So great for allowing my comedy friends to keep me in the loop on upcoming shows and inviting me to them. So awkward when several of these shows get booked at the same time on the same night. How many times can you click on "maybe attending" before you have to buckle down and accept or reject an RSVP? Perhaps that’s a rhetorical question. I just needed to type it, though, because tonight, many of my comedy friends are performing in comedy shows in New York City. One of these days, I’ll figure out the best way to add show listings to this site. This is not that day. This day, I’ll list my friends and their shows so you all can have the option of seeing them, too. Two Girls For Five Bucks, showcase at Ars Nova in Hell’s Kitchen, 8 p.m., $15, two women (one from NYC, the other from Boston) perform their full hourlong comedy burlesque show (hence the higher ticket price). I’ve reviewed them before. Pant-Hoot, stand-up comedy and a short educational film about non-human primates, at Magnetic Field in Brooklyn Heights (in the best neighborhood in Brooklyn, I might add with necessary neighborly bias), 8 p.m., free, hosted by Charles Star, and tonight his monthly show features Moody McCarthy, Adam Wade, DJ Hazard, Gilad Foss and Rachael Parenta. Sweet, weekly stand-up comedy...

The Calgary Herald, after interviewing George Carlin, decided to add its own two cents — in Canadian, that’d literally be loony — to the debates over who among us is the funniest of all. Although, actually, I just read it again, and they merely reprinted Comedy Central’s 2004 list with comments. Their list? 10) Eddie Murphy 9) Roseanne Barr 8) Bill Cosby 7) Rodney Dangerfield 6) Steve Martin 5) Chris Rock 4) Woody Allen 3) Lenny Bruce 2) George Carlin 1) Richard Pryor Four years later, I wonder how Comedy Central would play it…the network helped showcase Dave Chappelle to the world, only to send him running, and also has seen the dramatic and controversial successes of Dane Cook, Larry the Cable Guy and Carlos Mencia. Would the network have elevated any of these guys up the list for the sake of the network? As if Mencia’s show isn’t example enough of that, rushing to fill the void left behind by Chappelle. And would the four extra years give Jerry Seinfeld better historical play? What about Steven Wright? It’s certainly a different undertaking than A Special Thing’s semi-annual AST Top 20 rankings, which are very current and completely member-driven through their message board. They had Paul F. Tompkins, Patton Oswalt and Louis CK leading their most recent poll in October. Would your own Top 10 list of stand-ups be...