Warning: Not for Children

There’s going to be a slight tangent tonight.  Instead of my usual spiel about music and attempting to place it in some sort of musical metaphor, I’m going to talk about bits.  More specifically, I’m going to talk about my favorite men (not a sexist term because this list is solely men) of comedy and hope benevolent editor Matt Coleman is cool with it.

3. My newest addition to this list, Daniel Tosh, wasn’t at all like I expected him to be.  Having seen “Mind of Mencia” and “The Sarah Silverman Show,” it seemed to me that Tosh. O (and its host) would do what all the other Comedy Central shows had done: try so hard to be funny that they forget how to do it.  But that isn’t the case at all.  Tosh’s standup combines two of my favorite things: politically incorrect humor and witty observation.  At no point can Tosh be considered politically correct because his comedy delves straight into the realm of insulting and yet, he doesn’t spit out insults for insults sake.  His incorrect jokes are normally grounded in witty observation which is what makes them so damn funny.

2.  Bill Hicks is a paradox, sort of like a warrior poet influenced by both the beautiful and brutal.  On hand hand, Bill was one of the greatest political satirists of all time, looking at political topics, consumerism and culture through the most cynical of views.  His ranting and raving as if his blood was boiling is stuff of legends.  And yet his message, which emerges out of the flames, is the exact opposite of his act.  Whereas his act is chaotic, almost violent, directed at things he views as violent, stupid and unauthentic, his message was one of compassion, lashing into such topics as war with such ferocity you might think he was fighting one.  He espoused freedom from oppression, doing the right thing so I say that  Bill Hicks was just as much a philosopher as comedian, his great treatises not bound volumes but comedy… with some dick jokes thrown in.

1.  The funniest man I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching, hands down, is George Carlin.  Like Hicks, Carlin explored topics outside of the mainstream and critiqued things such as the political system, religion and corporations and yet whereas that is mostly what Hicks did, Carlin also provided witty observations on both language and psychology.  But I can’t really explain just how funny this man is you will just have to see for yourself.