NOBODY CAN TOUCH THE QUEEN

Comedy isn't always pretty. But it should be funny, and Eddie Izzard is hilarious. He's an Emmy Award-winning actor, a stand-up comic, and a tough transvestite who can take care of himself. In the spirit of the G20 summit, meet the Queen.

(Warning: this contains language as it is spoken everywhere by actual people. If you are easily offended by the common vernacular skip this clip and get back to "Everybody Loves Raymond." For the rest of you, have a great weekend.)

WHAT'S SO FUNNY?

David Sedaris is a funny man. He writes hilarious books. Read his books and send him gifts. (read one of his stories here)

Humor, of course, is relative. You might not like Sedaris. Some people prefer jokes, puns, pratfalls, put-downs, and the same old familiar shtick. Some people like humor of the "take my wife, please," variety. I like that, too. But I applaud comics who surprise me. Ricky Gervais is just such a comic. The excruciating everyman of the now defunct television series, "The Office," (British version, of course) is absolutely painful to watch. Gervais makes you cringe. What's so funny about cringing, you ask. Oh, it's funny. I've seen you cringe. Ha.



Part 2 of Ricky Gervais is here.

MY FAVORITE DEAD JUNKY COMIC

Leonard Alfred Schneider was hip, man. You might know him as Lenny Bruce if you know him at all. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, a new breed of rebel comedians breathed life into tired old comedy. Their humor was based on observation, not jokes--people like Mort Sahl, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, and Lenny Bruce were doing something new. Lenny Bruce was the hippest of the lot, the farthest out, the most incendiary. He never played it safe.

Busted! Lenny Bruce was a comic, social critic, satirist, writer, junky, and weirdo beatnik.

There was no shortage of comic talent in the late fifties and early sixties--you still had the old guys plying their trades and more traditional talents like Sid Caesar, Bob Newhart, Jonathan Winters, Bill Cosby--but the rebels changed the face of comedy forever. They paved the way for Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Bill Hicks, Sarah Silverman, the Saturday Night Live crew, and every other stand-up comedian out there.

Old comedy on the way out: a vaudeville act in days of yesteryear

Lenny Bruce was my favorite. He was hilarious, but didn't mind freaking out the squares with routines about drugs and race and sex, earning himself the label "sick comic." He used words on stage most of us hear every day, and for that he was hounded by police and tied up in the courts with endless obscenity charges. If you love freedom--not just cheap platitudes during wartime but actual freedom of thought and speech and artistic creation--you owe Lenny Bruce a nod.

Thanks, Lenny.



Lenny opened the door, and Richard walked through. Richard Pryor on drugs.


Part of the new breed: Eddie Izzard on religion.

Here's a good book: "Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s," available HERE.

PROP 8: THE MUSICAL!

warning: this is humor. As you may know, Proposition 8 was a California ballot measure that amended the state Constitution to restrict the definition of marriage to a union between a man and a woman and eliminated the right of same-sex couples to marry.

Come on, people! Get over it. Let 'em marry.

As expected, O'Reilly and the Fox News cretins are outraged--not with the limitation of civil rights, of course, but with the musical. Certain evangelical churches and branches of the American Taliban are warning people not to watch this "video virus." God forbid, you think for yourself! And God forbid you actually see it--you will have to pluck your eyes out, per the Bible.

Just kidding!

Keith Olbermann has the story.

GLADYS KNIGHT AND THE NEW PIPS

Here is the talented and lovely Gladys Knight with some New Pips. They all look vaguely familiar. I guess Tropic Thunder didn't open so big this weekend, and these poor actors are looking for gigs. Bummer, dude.

Yup, that's Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr., and Jack Black from the White Stripes. Something funny...have a nice weekend.

GEORGE CARLIN (1937-2008)

An early appearance on Hollywood Palace, 1966

We're sorry to hear that comedian George Carlin just passed away at the age of 71. "Passed away" is a euphemism Carlin wouldn't stand for; let's say he died. He worked to the very end -- coincidentally, my parents saw him perform in Las Vegas a couple weeks ago.

Like Lenny Bruce, Carlin used words that we hear all the time -- shocking to censors, perhaps, but commonplace in the real world. In his famous routine, "The Seven Words You Can Never Say on TV," he ridiculed our hypocrisy. The routine, by the way, led to a key Supreme Court ruling on obscenity, so maybe we're a little freer thanks to George. Fittingly, the following video has language suitable for mature intelligent people only. If words scare you, be warned!


Performing recently, "Religion is bullshit"

THANK YOU, MASK MAN

Lenny Bruce riffing on the Lone Ranger and Tonto in one of his nightclub gigs provided the audio track for this animated short by John Magnuson released in 1968.

Depending who you ask, Bruce was a sick comic, a junkie hipster, or a prophet healing a sick society. He was hounded for saying "dirty words" on stage, words you hear every day, and spent his later years fighting in the courts. Call it free speech. Bruce was ahead of his time, and maybe he was punished for it by a hypocritical puritanical society. So it goes.

Oh, and he was funny.

Lenny Bruce gets frisked

THE INSULTS OF CYRANO DE BERGERAC

How often have we wished to be more clever, to send stinging insults to someone who has disrespected us instead of standing dumbstruck like a dullard? Sometimes the perfect rejoinder arrives too late, while one is running errands or trying to sleep, which only makes the sting worse. Still, we savor the perfect insult! From scrappy corner boys playing the dozens, to men in leotards exchanging volleys of theatrical repartee -- and every strata in between -- wit is met with delight. Unless, of course, one is its object. Or subject. Whatever.

One of the greatest wits to ever wound with an insult was the French duelist, Hector Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac, made immortal in the play by Rostand. A popular poet with a gentle soul, he also was a fine swordsman when push came to shove. I saw the play performed last summer at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. It was brilliant and moving. There are many versions of the story on film, including the Steve Martin film, "Roxanne."

In this film clip, Cyrano is played by Jose Ferrer in the 1950 film. Here he instructs an effete aristocrat on the fine art of insults, and does a glorious job.

WITH A LITTLE SEX IN IT

The great Preston Sturges directed some of the wittiest films ever made. He reinvented comedy for Hollywood. This trailer is from a film retrospective of his work at Bryn Mawr Film Institute, and a reminder that "he's still the guy to beat."



I saw a brand new comedy this weekend. My girlfriend Wendy and I sat in the darkness, waiting for laughs. We sat there like Vladimir and Estragon, albeit with Diet Coke. Time slowed down to a near standstill. The movie was "Baby Mama" starring Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, two very funny people. What happened? Hollywood has recently discovered the hilarity of pregnancy -- wanted, unwanted, too old, too young, with surrogate mothers -- and this is the latest in a half dozen. What ever happened to originality?



Preston Sturges was original -- and funny. If you want a good laugh, skip all the formulaic, market-tested comedies out there, and rent "Sullivan's Travels." It tells the story of a Hollywood director who is sick and tired of making mindless fluff. He dreams of moving among the real people, and making a great film of social significance -- and it's hilarious. By the way, the film he dreams of making is called "Oh, Brother Where Art Thou." Years later, the Coen Brothers honored Sturges in a film of this name. With a little sex in it.

LYDIA THE TATTOOED LADY

There was a time a tattooed lady was an oddity rarely seen outside the carnival sideshow. Nowadays, many women sport tattoos, from the sensible looking businesswoman with a tiny bird or flower on her wrist to the more daring art babe with arms and hips and cleavage splashed with color. Still, it's rare to see the full-on, head-to-toe skin illustrations that decorated Lydia the Tattooed Lady. The great Groucho Marx sings her praises in the 1939 comedy, "At the Circus."
It may have been Groucho's theme song, but it was actually written by Harold Arlen (formerly Hyman Arluk) and Yip Harburg. This writing team was versatile. The year before penning "Lydia," they wrote "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" for The Wizard of Oz.

EXTRAS CHRISTMAS SPECIAL TRAILER

Ricky Gervais is a very funny guy. His humor is excrutiating. An Everyman trapped in a hell of his own making, he represents us all at our worst, bantam roosters with bruised egos and prickly arrogance stuffed sausage-like into portly packages and placed on a grill. This extended trailer for the Extras' Christmas Special will make you wince, and you'll probably be singing the Bowie tune all day long.