KaraokeFanboy

I didn't intend to post that last entry to this journal, but I'm glad I did, if only mention that I've been posting similar entries to my work-oriented blog, damn-noisy-kids.livejournal.com.  If you're interested in the tumultuous life of an after school program director, which deserves its own reality show if the TV format didn't threaten to damage the vocation's integrity, check it out.

Speaking of reality shows, I've been half-heartedly following this season's Last Comic Standing, and last night's episode was a real "shocker."  Gabriel Iglesias, the most established comedian I've ever seen in the series, was booted for using his Blackberry; contact with the outside world through any means is understandably forbidden by the contestants' contracts.  That wasn't the shocking part.  Prior to his controversial departure, Iglesias was the subject of a classic Friars' Club Roast, judged by Phyllis Diller, Gilbert Goffried, and "third season winner" Alonzo Bodden (to quote host Jim Norton, listed "in order of popularity").  The shock, to me, was when Bodden admitted to the group that he and Iglesias go "way back, 15 years."  So, the show is shamelessly admitting that many of its participants are already established in the industry?  Prior to LCS, Iglesias had his own Comedy Central Presents special, as did Todd Glass (one of my old favorites) from season two, yet this was the prize for season one and two victors.  Hell, contestant Bill Dwyer hosts a show on the Gameshow Network! I'm sorry, but comedians that just aren't popular enough for prime time shouldn't participate in a competition for which thousands of laymen travel hundreds of miles to try out.  Proving my theory that Seinfeld murdered the stand-up comedy business.  It's not good enough to get up on stage and perform on the circuit anymore; it's not even good enough to land 30 solid minutes of oft-repeated air time on the basic cable network dedicated to your craft.  You need a network sitcom, too.  Canned laughter, diorama living room, jokes written by socially inadequate college interns.  Good luck with that.

You want some real comedy?  Pick up Jamie Kennedy and Stu Stone's new album, named after their MTV pseudo-reality show Blowin' Up, which dropped yesterday.  I totally dig it . . . but I'm also afraid that it confirms a suspicion I've had of myself for some time.  I could really like hip hop.  Fortunately, this is comedy hip hop, so I figure, as long as I have the Triumph the Insult Comic Dog album, as well, I'm sticking with a genre.  (Wasn't Triumph's album called "Come Poop With Me?"  I gotta dig that one up again . . .)  Kennedy (who kindly signed his DVD for me at a local Tower Records appearance last weekend) and Stone don't take themselves very seriously, but they take hip hop as seriously as they come, which makes for a very entertaining album with both comedic and musical integrity.  This is a "crossover" I can live with.

More to come.