Tag: Humor

Jokes That Only I Think Are Funny

One of my favorite things is telling jokes that only I think are funny and nobody else thinks are funny. Which is, like, fantastic for stand up – I know.

I just think that there’s something hilarious about somebody thinking something is the funniest thing ever and everybody else just being like, “No, that’s not true. That is NOT funny. At all.”

That happened to me in real life once recently. 

I was on the train listening to a podcast in my headphones and then something funny happened in the podcast and I started laughing out loud. Like, really hard.

And then I looked next to me and I saw that this really old woman who was sitting next to me had just fallen off her seat on the ground.

And then I realized that everyone in the train was looking at me like I was some asshole because they thought I was just laughing my ass off at this old, injured, helpless lady who was sprawled out on the ground of the train.

And that just made me laugh even harder! Because they didn’t get the joke. They didn’t get why I thought it was funny. And at this point I was laughing hysterically, so I couldn’t just be like, “No, people…you don’t understand: my podcast is funny.” So I thought, “Okay, fine. I don’t care. I’m just make this even funnier for me.”

So, I just went with it. I pointed at the lady on the ground and went, “Ha, she’s old! She’s old and she fell! That’s hilarious!”

And then I got up…and I started kicking her. Real hard.

And then I pulled out my switch blade and I went, “STAB! STAB!”

And then I grabbed some of the blood and I was like flicking it on peoples faces all around the train.

And they still did not get the joke. They did not think that was funny. At all.

Except for one guy who was laughing. But then I realized that he had headphones on too, so he was probably just listening to the same podcast.

You people get it though, right? That’s FUNNY. You get it. You’re totally on my side.

The featured image is a mural of Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza from the TV show Seinfeld that I found somewhere in Brooklyn. I think it was in Bushwick.

Sean Patton Is Great

This past Monday I went to Whiplash at UCB in Chelsea for the first time. It was an amazing show and all the comics killed. Sean Patton headlined the show, and I’m not sure that I’ve seen him perform before. He’s a totally different act than what I’m used to seeing and it was pretty refreshing. And Patton especially murdered.

Anyways, I’ve been sharing a lot of articles and such lately so I figured it was time to get some more videos going. Here’s a fun one.

 

Brooklyn’s Newest Open Mike

This is a humor piece written by NYC Comedian Lucas Gardner and published in the New York Times. It’s a funny thing I like that pokes fun at the hoops you have to jump through to get stage time as an open mic comic in New York. Garner has written a lot of funny stuff. If you like this, check out his personal site.

Are Math Jokes Taboo?

A lot of people hate math. People hate math so much that our word for “complete and utter destruction” is “after–math.” That’s pretty bad. Like, what’s left after a bomb – we compare that…to multiplication tables.

That’s a joke I wrote that pretty much sums up how 50% of people feel about mathematics: it’s the absolute worst thing in the world. Physical torture cannot compare to the mundaneness of arithmetic nor the frustration of solving a system of equations. And yet, there are some crazy, weird people who actually like math.

What?! Who?! Well, I’m one of them! And so is San Francisco/Los Angeles based comedian Sammy Obeid. And if you’re a comedian who likes math, sometimes that can work against you.

Continue reading “Are Math Jokes Taboo?” →

The Sam Kinison Collection

“His gigs were part strip show, part heavy-metal concert, all primal-scream therapy.”

If you’re young and don’t know anything like me, you might never have heard of Sam Kinison. I heard about him once when I started comedy and now I have one of his comedy records and we get along just swell. Kinison is up there with the greatest comedians of all time. Why? I actually don’t know. I actually don’t find him very funny. But I do think he’s unlike anyone I’ve ever seen and if I was friends with him I know I’d think he was hilarious. That’s why I like listening to him so much.

I know my mom wouldn’t like him because he screams and yells all the time in his stand up, something he might have picked up as a short-lived Pentecostal preacher. Kinison was a weird, crazy guy and he died too young and too suddenly.

He did a lot of stand up. And something I didn’t know until reading this article was that apparently every one of his sets was different. That’s insane. He told different jokes every time he was on stage. So, a lot of his material has been lost over the years, especially since not everything was video recorded in the 80’s (that’s why you can’t find too much of his stand up online and why I’ve gone to albums).

Comedy Dynamics is coming out with The Sam Kinison Comedy Collection, which will pull together all his “lost” specials. Apparently there will be a bunch of stuff that hasn’t really been seen before. How do they do that? I don’t know. But it sounds cool and I’ll be looking forward to it.

Here’s some of his stuff. By the way…sorry if you’re like, “Duh! I KNOW who Sam Kinison is!” But it’s better for me to pretend you don’t than to pretend you do. And hey, you get to see a little more of him! Lucky you!

H. Jon Benjamin’s New Jazz Album Is Great

This has been all over Reddit, but I can’t help but share it because it’s hilarious. If you didn’t know, H. Jon Benjamin is the voice of infamous Archer and also Bob from Bob’s Burgers. And he’s a hilarious guy. He’s been all over TV, too – I’ve seen him in everything from Important Things with Demetri Martin to Aziz Ansari’s Master of None.

He released a new jazz album where he plays along on piano with a jazz band composed of world-class musicians…and he doesn’t know how to play piano. It’s the same kind of funny as those horrible recorder-playing songs, but way classier. And funnier, I think.

You can actually buy the album, too. So do that. If you like it.

Louis C.K. And Experimental Film

I saw this fantastic little piece about Louis C.K.’s experience with film on Splitsider and, as I just implied, I think it’s fantastic. The author actually went through all the interviews of C.K. he could find to pick out everything about film, and when you look at all those pieces altogether you get a much better appreciation of who C.K. is as a filmmaker rather than just a comedian.

As much as he is respected, I think C.K. never gets as much credit as he is due. When people talk about C.K., they’re usually talking about him being funny – being a comedian. Rarely do they talk about him being an artist and filmmaker who directs, writes, edits, and all but films himself in his various projects. Some people mention that, but rarely do they go further to explain how much he knows about film. If you’re just a consumer of the content he puts out, chances are you probably wouldn’t talk about C.K. in the same way you’d talk about Woody Allen, for example.

This article gives you that appreciation for C.K. way better than I could. Awesome read. Eddie Brawley has also written some other really cool pieces, so check him out on Splitsider.

If I can bring up Louis C.K. twice in one week, it’s a pretty good week!