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January 7th, 2004 Get It? Every first Monday of the month, my local favorite comic hot spot, the Punchline in San Francisco, runs a little comedy "game show" called Get It? The first Monday of January was upon us, so my sister & I ventured down to check out the show. Being the reigning champ of Get It?, I figured I go down and see what the other contestants had to offer. The game is set up like this (stay with me folks): The game is broken up into 3 rounds. Round 1 sees two comics go up and each do a short set. After the sets, 3 people are chosen from the audience (volunteers who had put their names in a fishbowl before the show). These three are then presented with questions where they "buzz in" and answer. First person to get 7 questions correctly wins the round. Round 2 follows the same formula. So now round 3 is the sole headline act. After his/her set, the winner from round 1 goes head to head with round 2's winner in a showdown where questions have to be answered in a 60 second time period. Whoever answers more questions correctly in those 60 seconds wins. First prize winner gets 10 tickets to the club as well as a gift certificate to a local eatery, while runner-up gets a not-too-shabby 10 ticket prize. So now, on to the comics. Joe Klocek Our host for the evening was the very funny and quick witted Joe Klocek. A veteran of the Bay Area comic scene, Joe kicks off the show with his set which starts off with a comparison of poor vs. wealthy lifestyles. This segues into how as a broke comic, he relates to college kids and their Top Ramen diets. He then goes into a bit about how America is made up of California and New York, with a whole bunch of retards and cornfields in between. This leads him to inform us that the reason Bush was elected was because of what's in between Cali and NY. He then goes on to talk about how after he shaved his head, people would come up to him with insults of racist or sympathetic concerns of being a cancer patient. His set ends with a story about how he was booked for a gig in the South but felt uncomfortable while talking to the booker. He was then assured that the South is a safe place and that "Even Jesus would have felt safe in the South", to which Joe replied, "Why? Is it because you burned all the crosses before he got there?" Roddy Castro The first comic of round one was the familiar Roddy Castro. I saw him open for Greg Giraldo back in November, and boy was I not impressed. He started off his set with an awful Neil Diamond impression. His facial gestures and the confused look on his face made me pray for his set to end quickly. Surprisingly though, the shorter set this time was far better than the first time I saw him, even though it was the same material, which included him disciplining his children with abuse, followed by an awful Dr. Phil impression. His take on sushi restaurants is fairly funny, as he describes the check as being very hard to decipher, having drawings of christmas trees and the symbol for Prince on it. His set lacks continuity, as he skips from one thing to another which felt like he was just starting over at every joke. The highlight of his set was his take on fat chicks who wear skinny girl clothing. All in all, a better set than last time, yet still lacking "it". Mike Spiegelman The second comic of round one was the very funny looking Mike Spiegelman. This guy looked like a cross between Pat the androgynous monster from SNL and Jeff Goldblum. He gets on and immediately lets everyone know that he likes pot. What a surprise. He speaks of his wake & bake routine which involves waking up at 6:45 every morning, doing a bong load, then going back to sleep. He goes on to explain how he's not a sexual or erotic person, another shock. He then delves back into stoner talk, as he informs us that Bay Area stoners are too complicated when it comes to naming their pot, saying that they name it after the region they grow it in. He then goes on to talking about how he fantasizes about washers & dryers while at the laundromat. He ends his set by going on about all the boner pills in magazines. He talks about how there's always a hot chick on the ad selling the boner pills. He wonders if by buying & using the pills, he would get a chick like that. Or maybe she's just a hot chick with a cock and boner problems. End of round one. Kevin Avery The first comic of round two was the absolutely hysterical Kevin Avery. I saw Kevin at a local showcase a few weeks ago and I got really excited when I saw him walk to the stage. Kevin is a black man with the white man voice. He looks like and reminds me of a young David Allen Grier in everything he does. The thing I like about him is that he doesn't play up the black man angle, except in a bit where he talks about being able to get a loan over the phone because of his white man voice, but when he gets to the bank, the tellers use the "Alpha Zulu Def Jam 1" code to inform each other that a black guy is around. He's got a lot of really good physical comedy which reminded me of Dane Cook. He goes on to talk about how he's more afraid of the people on airplanes looking for terrorists as opposed to the terrorists themselves.He then talks about how people are way too prejudiced, as in a time when he saw a guy on the "It's a Small World" ride at Disneyland, and a guy flipped off the arabic robots on the ride. Hethen talks about how it's hard to ask out a bank teller when she knows you only have $11.32 in the bank, which is followed by a rant on the gym and about how he can only bench like 20 pounds. Jeff Chrysler The second comic of round two was the very uneventful Jeff Chrysler. He states that he's been in New York for the past year, and judging by his act, I know why he came back to California. Aside from talking about how Scotish people are hard to understand, fat people being materialistic, or the perfume he's developing called "Fudge", there was nothing worth noting about this man's performance. His act was way too political for my tastes. He got into it with someone in the audience who cheered loudly for President Bush. Chrysler got way out of hand and started attacking the guy, which was followed by an extremely long rant that ended with Chrysler on the ground rambling, getting up, and leaving the stage. End of round two. Dan St. Paul Our headliner for the night was a really funny guy named Dan St. Paul. Dan's an older guy who looks like Norm McDonald in the Bob Dole make-up. He started off talking about how he's too old for pot now. He describes a scene at a recent concert where a guy offered him pot, but he wanted some food instead. He then talks about his friends wig and how it was stolen. His friend didn't appreciate his response of "That sucks. You lost your hair...again." He then moves onto the topic of his non-athletic teenage son. All his son wants to do is play video games and that he's a nerd with ADD. He's so glad that his kid is a smart nerd who can do his own algebra homework. He then finishes his set with how everyone's baby is beautiful no matter who you ask. So anyway, end of round three. All in all, it was a pretty good show. The winners ended up beating my record of 10 correct in 60 seconds, with both getting 11 correct. A tie breaker ended the show and we found out that the winners were actually a couple. How fucking gay.
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