Comedy Death Match: Structure vs. Content

As comedian Eugene Mirman suggests, the best comedy makes its impact by attacking on two fronts, structure and content. He should know, having co-founded and -run NYC's often hilarious, occasionally brilliant stand-up series, Invite Them Up.

Sadly, Mirman and partner-in-crime Bobby Tisdale stopped inviting them up in February, but thankfully, they left a decent digest recorded back in 2005. (HIghlights include the adorable Aziz Ansari and, of course, Mirman.)

Which brings me to Comedy Central Records, who put out the three-disc compilation and for whom I spent much of the last week building a boutique at Amazon. Besides spending days on end with a long succession of stand-up recordings in my player, the project also forced me to work up just about every bumper-sticker-length joke I could think of (which is why I'm fresh out now).

Nevertheless, it was the kind of project for which I'd gladly steal bread from Third World kids. However, if Paul Reiser was right (or was it Jerry Seinfeld?) and comedy is an evolutionary method of saying, "Please don't eat me or my children," then maybe, just maybe, this devotee of Dick Gregory, Bill Hicks, Stephen Colbert, and Terry Sawyer (among others) will live to see another day. If not, well, be warned: I'm also hard to spot, rather gamy, and covered in a sheet of skin rendered poisonous from years of very good times and very bad decisions.

            --Jason Kirk

P.S. Lenny Bruce fans, rejoice! For one day only, Amazon's offering a killer Gold Box deal on the Bruce box set, Let the Buyer Beware, sometime in the next few weeks. I don't have a firm date, but stay tuned, and as always, caveat emptor!

[Eugene Mirman image courtesy of my brother, Sam Kirk.]