The Definitive Guide to Comedy
Bill Burr recently had his own HBO half-hour special, and I wanted to know what he meant in a MySpace blog posting about moving 20 minutes from the end of his set to the front. "Early in my career, joke order was really important, because you had no idea what …
Mike Birbiglia spent most of the past week at the Comedy Studio in Cambridge, Mass., workshopping a new one-man show that he’s calling "Sleepwalk With Me." On Saturday, he even took an hour before the club opened to meet with any and all local comedians who had questions for him …
I think I know why Joe Rogan’s publicist wanted me to see his stand-up last weekend at the Comedy Connection. For those of you who haven’t seen Rogan perform before, know that he has a reputation for being one of the bluest of blue comics, coming out of the gate …
Louis CK had just gotten finished with his controversial appearance on The View when he got on the phone with me to talk about his new HBO show, Lucky Louie. The View’s female panel took him by surprise with their stinging criticism. "All of a sudden, I’m watching life and …
In 2006, Alonzo Bodden was the unknown winner of NBC’s Last Comic Standing, and here is what he had to say about the aftermath of that (this is all before he came back in 2007 to be a judge on the show). Ant, who never came close to winning on …
Nick DiPaolo sometimes give off the impression of an anti-comic, or perhaps a rather extreme example of the comic’s comic, playing to his fellow comedians more than he does his audience. When I talked to him in June 2006, we began by talking about his online home, which, at the …
You don’t need to be from Boston to appreciate When Stand Up Stood Out, the film by comedian Fran Solomita about the late 1970s and early 1980s, when Boston was, in fact, the Hub of the comedy world (or so it seemed). Think of Boston comedy in that era as …
Jay Mohr is out and Anthony Clark is in. Ponder that for a moment. Now let’s move on to a new season of Last Comic Standing. The first two hours aired last Tuesday. There’s an hourlong recap tonight at 8 p.m., but while you wait, here are some things you …
Greg Giraldo should be a lot more famous than he is. Of all of the stand-up comedians working the circuit and talking topical, few know how to tell it like it is like Giraldo can. My interview with him ran on Friday, and I went to see his show Saturday …
The political satirist often faces a paradox: The best of times for the satirist may be the worst of times for others. Which brings us to Barry Crimmins. Crimmins — former booker for the legendary Ding Ho comedy club in Cambridge and Stitches in Boston, now writer for Air America …