Some comics' alt humor is little to laugh about
It's funny, most of the comedians at the Alternative Comedy Festival in Somerville weren't all that alternative. Emo Phillips is admittedly a bit cuckoo, but he's the king of that stand-up staple, the one-liner; Patton Oswalt was the voice of Remy in
The most offbeat of the bunch was the baffling doktor cocacolamcdonalds, a British comedian who came out in white face paint wearing only socks, tennis shoes, and tropical underwear. He sang bad songs to bad synthesized beats, but his spoken word cover of "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" theme song, performed in a kimono with a box over his head, was pretty amusing.
Some of the comedians pushed their musings to the edge of acceptability, which I guess is a form of alternative humor, but there was nothing redeeming about Australian comic Jim Jeffries's jokes about rape and burning prostitutes. And the strange prevalence of Asian jokes was a little off-putting. The lethargic Morgan Murphy wondered if Asians text "ROR" instead of "LOL" for "laugh out loud." The Walsh Brothers' entire back-and-forth set was about the beleaguered Fung Wah bus line, culminating in a song performed with a live rock band that included Chris in a Bruce Lee jumpsuit, David in a karate uniform, and a line about a fortune cookie on wheels. Is it OK for comedians to make racially charged jokes behind a veil of irony? I'm not so sure.
Fellow former local Eugene Mirman kept the focus on his multimedia material, booting up his Mac to play his versions of Boston.com's "This Is Not Boston" ads. "I love riding on the Orange Line and meeting new people," he says in one of them, wearing a Red Sox cap and shoveling Chinese takeout into his mouth. It's much better when he does it, trust me.
Todd Barry made a few lame local jokes and took pleasure in berating the audience in his unpleasant and conceited way. "Am I the most famous person you've ever talked to?" he asked a guy in the front row. But at least he's mildly self-aware, dubbing his set "delightfully sloppy" before walking offstage.
Saturday night's headliner, Patton Oswalt, was not at the top of his game. He rambled about things that had happened to him that day and skipped quickly through stories, once even admitting "Usually that gets a bigger laugh." Still, he was goofy and adorable, as always, making fun of his paunch and comparing people who still like President Bush to people who still like Creed - surprisingly, the only political humor of the night.
The neurotically spacey Phillips was the most comedic of the bunch. His shtick is punch line after punch line - "You look slinky I said at the top of the stairs," "I was at Jerusalem at the Wailing Wall, standing there like a moron with my harpoon" - delivered with his trademark wheezy, up-and-down inflection.
Phillips has been doing this since the '70s, and he's still got it. The other comedians on the bill should hope to have half his staying power - and half his ability to still be considered alternative after all these years. 