I’ve made little to no secret that I’ve been a fan of Myq Kaplan’s comedy for years, and I’m not just saying that because I have ridden in his car on trips between Boston and New York City when we both lived in the former, although I am just saying that in the interests of full disclosure, although I should probably also mention that I have been in his car at other times, too.
If you’re a fan of Kaplan’s already, then perhaps I don’t need to explain further. Kaplan not only has earned a master’s degree in linguistics, but also has earned a mastery of the use of wordplay in stand-up comedy. As he has matured onstage, he has learned how to slow down his fast-paced wit so audiences can follow along and laugh at each and every nuanced turn of phrase, tag and callback — whether he’s telling you why “betwixt” is the gayest of the prepositions (which, of course, it is) to showing you why conventional wisdom arguments against gay marriage, drugs and civil rights aren’t necessarily wise. All of this shows up on his new CD, Vegan Mind Meld, recorded live last spring at Comix. And some of this will be on full display tonight when his half-hour Comedy Central Presents debuts. As someone who also enjoys playing with words, I have enjoyed pretty much every single one of my conversations with Kaplan over the past five years. And by pretty much every single one, I mean all of them.
Here’s one sampling that you can see tonight and hear slightly differently on CD, in which Kaplan talks about engineering schools, women, robots and sex. In that order, but not really.
More? OK. Here is Kaplan reminding us of the joys of Snakes on a Plane, then extrapolating other movie ideas — which segues into a bit about his grandmother (which appears on the CD) and fighting stereotypes. Roll the clip.
Kaplan had quite the 2009, winning multiple stand-up comedy contests, including the one called New York’s Funniest Stand-Up, earned ECNY Emerging Comic honors not only for that, but also for being a “New Face” at Montreal and performing for the short-lived Conan O’Brien edition of The Tonight Show. Here’s what that looked like, in case you need a reminder:
All indications indicate that Myq Kaplan will be known by many more people everywhere in 2010.
Get his CD, Vegan Mind Meld, before the rest of America beats you to it.
didn’t laff once!
@Mary: How many times DID you laff?
@Sean: Thanks for writing!
Though, I don’t argue AGAINST civil rights most of the time. (You’ve been grammar’d!)
@Everyone: fun!
Myq Kaplan,
Funny dude when he does original material, but the “Call back to other people’s jokes” king. He does it in every contest, EVERY ONE. Cherry picks other people’s best jokes and does a call back to it for cheap laughs. No one ever says anything to him about it.
That’s not true! Someone is saying something to him about it right now, frankly!
(Someone is you and him is me!
Also, “frankly” is an adverbial form of your name.
And adverbial is an adjectival form of adjective.
And this could go on forever.)
And other people HAVE actually said things about it to me in the past, things like “I don’t mind that you did that” and “It takes a lot of balls to tell a joke you just wrote in such a situation” and “I love those cheap jokes!”
In any event, feel free to email me if you’d like to discuss it further, sincerely.
And thanks for calling me the king. In exchange, I shall not call for your beheading.
PS My goal in this is always to just be in the moment, and add something to the comedy that’s been going on, to create something new that is also in touch with what people have been experiencing. Contests are weird animals in general, and I’m not a huge fan of the contest concept. But I do it in non-contest settings as well, where it generally goes non-contested.
Thanks for writing.
Love,
Myq the King (and simultaneously the Jester)
He’s a freakin’ genius! We could ALL learn from him. I Tivo-ed his special. Can’t wait to watch it now.
I Lyq Myq!