Wednesday, July 15, 2009

An evening of ‘conservative comedy’

So last night I motored down to the Laugh Factory on Sunset, lured by a “conservative” standup comedy show. I wanted to see how much that would suck.

I expected a fair degree of suckitude because the organizer was Evan Sayet, a hack comic who relentlessly promotes himself on right- wing talk radio. (I blogged about him last year.)

Sayet’s Hollywood résumé includes writing for Bill Maher’s “Politically Incorrect” and “The Arsenio Hall Show.” But I hadn’t heard a good joke out of him yet.

I was curious to see what other conservative comics would be performing.

Well, guess what? There were some decent comics. And in the midst of all the partisan knife-throwing, there were some decent punch lines.

Not from Evan Sayet, however. Dude cracked two “teleprompter” jokes within his first two minutes onstage. Seriously... is that the best shot they can take at Barack Obama? That he knows how to read a speech?

“He’s not a bright man,” Sayet said of President Obama. “He was asked about Hamas. He said it goes good with pita bread. Not a bright man, that’s all I’m saying.”

Okay... first thing: After “Bruno,” Sacha Baron Cohen owns the Hamas-hummus pun. Second: A good joke has to be grounded in some kind of reality. You cannot goof on Obama’s intellect. It makes no sense.

There was a lot of Obama-bashing last night, naturally. A woman in the corner was selling “Obaaaama” bumper stickers, with a drawing of a sheep alongside the Obama “O” logo.

Steven Crowder, a Dane Cook wannabe, mocked the fact that Obama was named one of People magazine’s sexiest men. “We’re not talking about Hugh Jackman here,” Crowder said. “He looks like a photo negative of Alfred E. Neuman.”

The audience – about 100 people, including many white-haired white folks – dug it.

My note-taking wasn’t pristine, so I forget who delivered this pip: “This country is going down faster than Barney Frank at a West Hollywood bathhouse.”

The “edgiest” comedian was Bo “Bald Eagle” Clark... whom even Evan Sayet described as a “redneck.”

Clark wore a camouflage vest with an American flag patch. He was the only comic who cursed. And his recurring punch line was “Nuke ’em.” As in North Korea: “Nuke ’em. South Korea is enough Koreans.” (I laughed.)

Clark was so over-the-top with his references to “camel jockeys” and “diaper-heads,” I half suspect his whole act is a mockery of rednecks.

The most surprising performer was Al Sonja Schmidt, a black woman who has written for such shows as “In Living Color” and “The Parent ’Hood.” Her standup act is based upon her being “ostracized” by friends and family since she became a Republican.

I say Ms. Schmidt has a future in bashing Barack Obama for white audiences. Here’s one of her Obama jokes: “Hollywood gave us the Marx Brothers, and this year they gave us a Marxist brother.”

Here’s a brief video clip of Al Sonja Schmidt:

13 comments:

Geneva Girl said...

She looks like a drag queen without the good makeup.

Anonymous said...

Al Sonja Schmidt?? shit... looking at her, i'd swear SHE'S an Undercover Black Man.

Undercover Black Man said...

Not to be mean, but... when she got onstage I thought she looked like James McDaniel in drag.

bklyn6 said...

"conservative comedy"

Isn't that an oxymoron?

Re: Sayet and Crowder...where's a heckler when you need one?

eekeller said...

I've been watching guys in drag for 46 years....and, guess what...YEP!

Dan Coyle said...

Crowder claims the "photo negative" joke got him thrown out of a club. I really don't understand the use of those words. "He looks like Alfred e. Newman!" would still work just as fine. Unless, uh, he's an asshole. Which, if you read his stuff and watch his videos, he so clearly is.

Not surprised to hear that Sayet's jokes weren't funny. He's humorless and mean, because like most liberal to conservative converts, his guilt over what his former party has done, and what his current party has done, threatens to crack him in half, so he's got to be as nasty as he possibly can to drown out the voices in his head.

Undercover Black Man said...

^ Crowder is not without skills. But he relies waaay too much on the ethnic jokes.

bklyn6 said...

Is David Arquette a comedian? Da hell?

Dan Coyle said...

Oh, Crowder definitely has stage presence. But it's drowned out by his seemingly infinite rage.

dez said...

I think we can all agree that hummus is tasty.

The "Marxist brother" and "South Koreans" jokes are kinda funny, but the rest...hurrmmm. The scariest part, though, is the guy who is a Dane Cook wannabe. There's already a glut of talentless rich f**ks in America; we don't need any more.

Undercover Black Man said...

^ How I've missed you, dez.

dez said...

I missed you, too, UBM! Nice to see you blogging again :-)

Anonymous said...

The biggest joke of all, after eight years of Bush bashing and a year of Palin Bashing including jokes about raping children (Letterman anyone?), is that the left can't take a joke.

They love to dish it out, but joke about the "Chosen One", their "fascist messiah" (was that a joke?), and they suddenly find such behavior "offensive", "mean spirited", "racist", etc.

Hypocrites, all of you.

Waaaaaah!