Review: Bill Burr at Caroline's 1/8/06

Great set. Fresh material. Burr's game gets better every year.

It not only takes balls for a white guy to do slavery jokes, it also takes a well-tuned instinct for performance and timing. There was hardly a moment when Burr lost the crowd -- which, by the way, were lower-middle class imports from the mid-west. I haven't seen so much bleached hair since the Britney-Christina showdown in Manhasset.

Caroline's is about as comfortable and well-run as the JFK airport, but at least they had their acts decently arranged from worst to best. MC Marina Franklin did the same, tired shit about being an Oreo, hating her single status and living with a cat. If a woman is going to once more unearth a fucking mummy out of the graveyard, at least she can throw in some bestiality to keep it from boring the crap out of me. I hope her only defense is that she's new to the business and not suffering from end-stage syphilis.

The only other memorable opener was Wil Sylvince, who unfortunately has the habit of dressing like Justin Timberlake, but had a decent bit about The Weather Channel. He really mined the shit out of that one, but I think it's gone as far as it can. I mean, how much content are you gonna get out of a TV channel that has no content? I'll presume that he'll grow more as a professional and try out more daring material in the future.

It's hysterically funny that Burr justifies race jokes because he's fucking a black girl in Harlem. (125 St. is not that bad. Stop being such a pussy and just pretend you're five-o.) His best bit was about muffins at a street fair -- I don't want to give the punchline away, but think "eggs at brunch" for those of you who have seen Burr's HBO One Night Stand. He's still revisiting fave themes -- girlfriend problems, Dubya, and being a white guy with no excuse -- but the jokes are all new and make these topics funny all over again.

By the way, check out Burr's website at www.billburr.com. He's got plenty of streaming material, including the HBO Special if you've missed it, and I'd say 90% of the a-v feed is damn good. Great way to kill time at work.

-Aud