Ease Up There, Chuckles

I've always had a tremendous respect for stand-up comedians. First off, I love going to comedy clubs - I find it to be a great night out. Secondly, it takes tremendous balls to stand up in front of a group of people and try to make them laugh. Because if you fail, I can only imagine that it must be terrible. You know when you're in front of a group of friends and you're telling a story you find to be really funny, only when you get halfway through you realise, "Crap, this isn't nearly as funny as it was in my head. They are not going to get the humor of Dave stepping in a puddle of beer. They don't know Dave and they don't understand he just bought those shoes." It's an awful, sinking feeling. Well, imagine that feeling multiplied by 1,000 and it happening in front of total strangers instead of your friends. That is the risk comedians take every night. But with that said, I could do without the self-important comedians that seem to dot the landscape.

No, comedy is not easy, but at the same time comedians are not curing cancer, nor are they teaching America's youth. I can not stand the comedians who are out on stage trying to act all edgy as if their comedy is more important than what other guys are doing. "What you're doing is hackey, what I do is groundbreaking and important." They rail against the comedians who have jokes in their act about airline food, but two minutes after putting those guys down they'll launch into their bit about how great popcorn is. It's this grandiose way of looking at themselves which creates a double-standard that never fails to drive me crazy. I get that most comedians are just looking for a chance to put someone else down after being the butt of jokes for most of their youth, but you would think they would remember that the people who used to put them down were, in actuality, dumb assholes who never learned how to develop comedic timing past the point of giving someone a purple nurple. Comedy comes from that very adversity.

The most frequent target is, of course, Carrot Top. And no, I don't find Carrot Top to be funny, but jees, at least he's honest about what he is. Clearly, the guy has an audience. I only bring this up because I was listening to an old Howard Stern clip the other day and this comedian was talking about every comedian hates Carrot Top for being a prop comic and selling out. Not 15 minutes later I was flipping around and there was that same comedian doing one of VH1's I Love... list shows. Not exactly what I would call railing against corporate America. Then again, I'm sure VH1 has very good popcorn in the green room.

-Speaking of people with huge egos, I really feel like Bill Belichick's decision to go for it on 4th and 1 yesterday, early in the first quarter and near mid-field, was a statement. It was a statement to the team, to the fans and to the rest of the NFL. That statement? "I'm Bill Belichick, I've won 3 Super Bowls as a head coach, 2 more as an assistant and I don't care what you all think, I'm not changing the way I do things. You can kiss my ass if you think I should punt. You know what? I'll even admit that I probably should punt, but that just makes my decision to go for it all the more egotistical." Really, he would have been less subtle had he signalled in the play with a double middle finger salute. I can see why the rest of the NFL can't stand him... and why this town loves him.