Ugh...

I don't know what it is about comedy and comedians that inspires so much contempt from the MSM, but whenever it's a slow news week some bloggy person who has never stepped foot on a comedy stage (or once got booed off of one) dusts off her best cocktail party snark and aims it at stand-ups.

12 Comics Who Aren't Funny is the latest installment in this tired genre. Among the dozen targets are the usual suspects: Dane Cook, Larry The Cable Guy, Carlos Mencia...yawn, and a few guys (no women) whose inclusion makes it abundantly clear that the writer, Sarah Ball, had not reached puberty when these comics were at the top of their respective games, namely:

Jay Leno. Really? I can only assume that Ball is judging him solely on his late night TV career of the past 20 years because prior to that Leno was the guy to see. He was funny and respected by just about everyone in the business. He was a favorite on Letterman, and - oh yeah - he recently did a couple FREE shows in Michigan for folks hard hit by hard times. At the very least, give him credit for not being an asshole. And besides, no one is THAT funny on television. Why? Because it's television.

Andrew Dice Clay. Again, is there any point in going after The Dice Man in 2009? He still works, and I've heard mixed reviews of his current act, but if you were an adult circa 1989-90 and not an irony-deficient fuckstick, Dice was FUNNY. Not deep, not sophisticated, but funny. Congrats, Sarah, twenty years later you still don't get it.

Emo Phillips. I'll be the first to admit I can't take hours on end of Emo. Yeah, he's got that voice and that quirky delivery. But the guy can write jokes, good ones, lots of them.

In February I will have been doing comedy for five years, which is a day in this business, but it's long enough to know that bickering over who's funny and who's not is about as useful as arguing over what tastes better - bacon or sausage. I also know that no comic who takes comedy seriously would ever go on the record with this kind of bullshit, therefore...

Sarah Ball's opinions are utterly worthless.

The only people who engage in this kind of thing are first-year open-mikers and, apparently, news magazines who are about to go under. Which is funny when you note that everyone on Ball's list is still working.

Wisconsin & Minnesota

Had a great time last week featuring with Bill Blank in La Crosse, WI and a really great time at Willy's Loose Cannon show in Coon Rapids, MN. Thanks to everyone who came out and mucho thanks to Daryl Horner and Bill. Look for a new vid over at my YouTube page soon.

I'm going to try to update the YouTube channel more regularly from now on, so please subscribe. I'm done with Myspace - yeah, I know, it's trendy to be a myspace hater, but frankly I have too many pages, and the only reason I update most of them is because I feel obligated to do so. I'll leave the Myspace page active for a while, but I won't be updating it all that much. Facebook is great for keeping up with folks but not so great for the comedy thing, so... this site and Youtube are the places to be for all your Dan Tessitore needs.

ahem...

Hate to say I told ya so, but... nah, I like saying I told ya so.

Scratch That...

Kerry White will not be coming to Illinois in December. I won't bore you with the reasons (and it ain't your business anyway), but we'll make those shows happen sometime after the New Year. I'll still be in Terre Haute December 10, and we still plan on a show in Charleston, IL December 12 - I just need to find a comic. I'll keep you posted.

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Had a good weekend with Larry Reeb and Chris Speyrer at Mason City Limits, Chris' club in Mason City, Illinois. Saturday night was light - a dozen for the early show and four for the late one. Seems most of the residents with a few bucks to spend preferred the costume/karaoke contest at the bar around the corner. Fair enough - Halloween comes once a year - but when a comedy legend comes to your hamlet for $10, couldn't you find a way to work that into your schedule?

Larry eats faster than I do, which is impressive. He went through a plate of sausage ravioli in alfredo sauce faster than Chris Farley through an eight-ball. He's a great guy and a class act, and he told one of the best heckler stories I've ever heard. About a dozen years ago, he was on stage in Omaha, NE doing a bit about a plane crash. A guy in the audience took issue with the joke, loudly announcing that his sister had died in a plane crash, to which Larry replied: "Great, let's dig her up and fuck her."

Which is not only a great smack-down but the most logical response. Your sister died in a plane crash - tragic, yes - but are you gonna carry that around your whole life, not to mention attempt to determine the course of a comedy show for everyone else in the room? If comics had to censor themselves based on what might offend a single audience member, there would be no comedy. In fact, that's a large part of what comedy is...finding a way to laugh at tragedy. One of my fat best friends died of a heart attack last year at 46, but guess what, I still laugh at funny fat guy jokes and heart attack jokes. In fact, I even wrote my own dead-best-friend bit.

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I'll be in Terre Haute this Saturday, November 7 at a bar in a bowling alley, Imperial Lanes. Scroll down one post and click on the Carnival of Comedy poster to add Matt Burris/COC on Facebook. Then the following week I'm stepping foot for the first time in Wisconsin and Minnesota, comedy gods willing.