Chris Rock and Marlon Wayans put up game changing specials last week. One for Marlon Wayans, and one for Netflix and for Stand-up. The Chris Rock special did more for Netflix than it did for Chris. Not that Rock didn’t hit it out of the park, because he did. One hundred percent.

CHRIS ROCK’S AGENDA

It’s not that Rock didn’t have some mettle to settle.  Boxes to check off. He checked them all off. One by one. Beautfully. Here at a street level, he capped off months and months of some serious hard work, touring and club hopping, molding, working, re-working and  re-shaping to put together a sharp, brave, edgy, contemporary special. One with teeth. A piece that had danger to it. One that could show himself he was still Chris Rock. That would show the world he was still pound for pound one of the best satirist of modern culture we’ve ever had.

After taking some time off acting, and after what I personally thought, and understood why, was some ducking and covering to the wild winds of culture, and a bit of the playing to the trained seals and going with the grain in Tamborine, which was the opposite of what has made him great in the past, I think he needed and wanted to be brave. Bold. A shit-stirrer.

By the way,  this was before the ‘slap’ stuff. This was where he was going before all of that. His eye was on this prize before Will Smith and the Academy members dissed him and the art and craft of stand-up in a way that should never, ever, be forgiven or forgotten. This was a huge win here for Rock. This was like a heavyweight champ getting the belt back again after getting T-boned by a drunk driver or something.

BEYOND WILL SMITH

The win for this special, to me, had very little to do with the Will Smith sizzle and the social media bake-off that came after it. If anything the win for that can go in Robbie Praw, the Netflix stand-up bosses, column. He and his team did an amazing job on this one, which I’ll discuss later.  The win for Chris had very little to do with Will Smith’s meltdown. Almost nothing. The bounty Chris gets out of this special and the tour he’s been on, the eight nights at the Dolby in LA, crushing it at the O2 in London, all over Europe, will be the final settling in comfortable forever on the shelf alongside of Pryor, Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, and most likely Dave Chappelle. Go backstage at one of Chris’s shows and see the galaxy of superstars from Paul McCartney on down who line up afterwards to kiss the ring. He’s there now, at a rare level, and he’s never leaving. There’s a lot of comics these days that are hot. And they are hot. No doubt. They’re selling tickets. A lot of tickets, and it’s damn hard to get there, but to get where Chris has now landed, what this special has done, what the work has brought, it’s another level. The numbers drop off drastically after this point.

THE WORK ETHIC

I’ll hit this one more time because everyone who’s been reading this blog since I started it last year knows that to me it’s everything. Rock works harder than the rest of them. He just does. I’ve seen it for years. He takes it so serious. If you’re a young comic and you’re wondering what’s the secret sauce there, it’s that he’s just always had an amazing work ethic. That goes for everyone who I’ve seen beat the pack. They just write more, get up more, rewrite more, study it more, think about it more, and analyze it closer. Rock, Chappelle, Sandler, Leno, Louis, Seinfeld, Burr,  Gervais, Cummings, Rogan, Neal Brennan, Damon Wayans these are some obsessed fucking people. Freaks actually, and Chris Rock is probably,  on some level, the premiere freak of the bunch.  You think golfers put the time in? Athletes? Could be that they do, but not more time than the comic greats. Not more time than Chris Rock.

THE MATERIAL

If you haven’t watched that special, go watch it now. If you have, watch it again. First off, I can rattle off at least thirty minutes of A level stuff I saw in LA and London that he didn’t do because he had too much stuff. There’s so many well thought out pieces on life today. As a man. A father.  A black man. Things even a black man isn’t supposed to say. (A throwback to the old Chris Rock. To the Bring the Pain Chris Rock.)  Things any man isn’t supposed to say in the new post Harvey Weinstein world. Yet he can say them because he’s found the funny. Found the humor that we couldn’t. He took the time, had the talent, scooped out the comedy. He gets to say the stuff you’re not supposed to say. Those are the rules. If you don’t like them, stand outside in the cold and protest while the comic is onstage making everyone else laugh. Just please, don’t try to change the rules. (*Everyone else; Don’t try to pretend those aren’t the rules, or that any comic has ever been cancelled for anything other than stuff he’s said off-stage.)

Rock’s set list in Selective Outrage is daring at the same time it’s personal, and revelatory. It speaks absolutely to this moment in time we’re living in. Parenting in this moment. Dating in this moment. Being alive right now. It’s precision paced and flawlessly put together in the manner and style of George Carlin’s best hours. Disciplined and formal. Thematic even without have a bone marrow point or motif other than that of the selective outrage. I think the cap-off of the final Will Smith stuff, which as far as I can tell was a late add-in, not in the shows I saw, yet simply organic and real, needed, and what he felt. What the audience wanted, what was deserved.  A nice topping on an amazing cake that was brought out to celebrate this moment in a remarkable career.

STAND-UP SPECIALS GET A BREATHER (OR DO THEY?)

Robbie Praw and his team at Netflix truly do need applause for pulling off what they did. They made a stand-up special, which has sadly become a very tired event,  an ubiquitous hour of television, streaming, cable, and internet, and somehow successfully pumped pageantry and life into it in a unique way. I think Chris’s stature and the Will Smith of it all obviously helped, but the brilliance of the before and after show at the iconic Comedy Store, using just the right version of stand-ups from past, present, and future to comment, tease, and play, was perfect. It turned it into not so much of a prize fight or an awards event, but a major moment in stand-up history. The first ever live streamed stand-up special that needed to be lionized and canonized with adulation, flattery,  and also equal parts mischief and mayhem, by a handful of comic rascals. It somehow came off perfectly.

GOD LOVES MARLON WAYANS

At just about the same time, HBO dropped a Marlon Wayans special that was a true game changer. From Marlon comes an amazing piece of work from someone who’s not really known as a stand-up.  Someone more known as a comic actor, film-maker, even sometime dramatic actor. A member of an iconic entertainment family. A loveable, funny little charming guy that’s been in show business since the doctor pulled him out of his mother’s thing a magjingy, slapped his ass and made him cry.  I love Marlon. I’ve known him for years, and I think the world of him. He’s just a first class guy. I’m so happy about this special.

GAME CHANGER

I’ll say it again but anyone who sees this special, and you should if you call yourself a fan of stand-up, will see Marlon Wayans in a different light, so it is a game changer. This is so much growth for Marlon as a stand-up. Not that he wasn’t good. He’s always been too talented not to be ‘good,’. The family has it in their genes. But Damon is the one that stuck it out in stand-up. Damon. Shawn. Damon, jr. Keenan, I don’t think has done it in years. Marlon let it go for a long time. Trust me. It’s not easy to come back.

This was a stretch. This was a big shot, This could have gone really south. Deep south. It didn’t.  This is funny, and damn fresh. Truly different. Unique. That’s so hard to do in a stand-up special.

ONE ISSUE. ONE TOPIC. THE WHOLE SPECIAL.

This whole special is about the Chris Rock/ Will Smith slap-dust up. The entire special. From Marlon’s point of view. That takes a special kind of narcissism, yes, but that’s what some great art is about. How does what’s happening in the world look through the artists eyes? Marlon takes this event we all had opinions on,  serious opinions on, about three people Chris, Will and Jada, that Marlon’s known so well for years, and tells some seriously funny stories and truths, that reveal so much about Marlon and life in Hollywood. At the same time, it’s nothing about Hollywood or show business. It’s at the end, in a full circle, a wonderfully told story about acceptance, faith, love, and the foolishness of coveting any life but your own. A story about gratitude and love,  acceptance. Really. It’s about what way you want to perceive the world.

It’s a spiritual piece of work with every dick joke he could muster. No laugh left off the stage. He goes for it in the true brand of Marlon Wayans, just honestly, taken up a notch in terms of cleverness in the writing, (hell I’d say several notches). There’s so much growth here. You see and feel, come to understand the reverence he has for Chris Rock and his older brothers,  and even Will Smith, but to me the great joy is that he’s grown so much as a performer and writer and come to respect the audience and the art form in such a way that he would push himself in this direction. Allow himself to be this honest and this real. Trust that the end result would be so funny. So relatable. So charming.

THE WORK ETHIC

This is another one that couldn’t be short sheeted. There was no way to put this together the easy way. He just had to find it, then work it out. Beat by beat by beat. It’s hard work. Things have to change, move, once one thing works it makes another thing not work. Then to think it would lay out and hold still for a full special? And to put it onto a God motif and bring the things he brings back and forth back again, and again, it’s really a lot or work, and scary. I don’t think I’d have the balls to do it. In fact, sadly, I know I wouldn’t.

It comes off pretty great though. I don’t remember anyone else doing anything quite like this. Then to release it at the same time as Chris’s special? To go up against one of the greatest comedians of all time with this special? Wow. You have to see this. If you love stand-up. This one’s a winner not only because it’s funny, but also because it’s a real ‘special’. It’s something so different. Not a play, not a one man theatre piece. No, it’s stand-up. Highly charged and joke strapped. That’s why I love it so much, that and because it’s someone taking a shot and scoring. Yes, it’s a game -changer. Marlon Wayans is a true fucking stand-up now. He’s in the game. What he wants to do with it is anyone’s guess, but he’s in it.

I’m really curious what you think of ‘God Loves Me’, but I do know he loves Marlon Wayans.

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Theo Von put on one hell of a show at the Wilbur tonight. One of like six or seven sold out shows he’s done there this week out of something like twelve concert venues he’s sold out this month in the Boston area alone. It’s pretty amazing. I’ve never seen Theo headline his own concert like that, and I have to admit I was more than a little surprised how impressed I was.

A COMEDY STORE KID

Don’t get me wrong. I know Theo’s a big shot. He’s just kind of a Comedy Store kid to me. A bit of a wounded duck or something. I love the guy, so much. When I got back to the store though, after all those years to do the doc, for some reason I knew him more as a guy that was friends with my son, Burt. I kind of know him out of the business too. On another level because we’re both dealing with stuff about being sober and trying to stay sober.  I never really listen much to his podcast. We did a piece on him and it in the Comedy Store doc and I didn’t really get why people were so into it but knew they were. It was obvious. We filmed him a few times at the store, in an interview setting and on stage in the main room. I thought he was really good. Strong with a lot of potential. I loved some of the stuff he did about his dad being really old when he was a boy. He was a rascal on stage. I related to that. When I was a kid, I was the rascal at the store.

LOUIS C.K. INTERVIEW

I’ve listened to his podcast a few times recently and I have to say it’s growing a lot. At least on me it’s growing. The drawback to it is the same problem I have with him as a person. There’s a wall up a lot of the time where you always get the feeling you think he wants something from you or he thinks y0u’re going to take something away from him. Hurt him in some way. He doesn’t seem to want to let anyone really be nice to him. I get that vibe sometimes with the interviews. It’s a dance not to get too real. It can be a blur where he’s always in character as the ‘rat’, being so homespun, his guests never can really get to real or settled. It’s funny as hell, but there’s a vibe where you want to learn something on the next level.

The Louis C.K. interview was awesome. He and Louis really talked to each other. Theo was the best I’ve ever heard him be as an interviewer. He obviously respects the hell out of Louie, but that’s not the whole game with Theo. Respect isn’t enough. At the time he had Burr on I have to think he respected him, and that was a bit of a train wreck. (And it wasn’t all Theo’s fault that one.) He was so good with Louis because he let Louis in. He let him be nice to him. Compliment him. Talk about what Louis felt listening to his albums on Itunes. What Louis thought about comedy. He wasn’t suspicious about Louis. His guard was down. It was nice. Such a good interview.

His podcast is obviously a huge hit. He’s selling out these theatres like a stripper that won’t take money. Every seat is full. Every night.

A UNIQUE PERFORMER

I really was crazy about the set tonight at the Wilbur. I love to laugh out loud, hard. It’s not easy for a comic to make me laugh my ass off. A lot of acts make me giggle, chuckle. Nod a lot. Laugh in appreciation. Even wish I wrote some of the stuff which is the highest compliment I can think of. To laugh my ass off though? Consistently? For over an hour? Maybe Richard Pryor when I was kid at the Comedy Store. Burr used to always make me laugh so hard my stomach was sore. Constantly. I’d travel around with that guy and go to bed feeling like I’d done crunches. A couple times Whitney Cummings has made me laugh so loud I embarrassed my son. Brian Holtzman has made me lose it. Dane Cook.  Jim Breuer. There’s a ton of really, really, funny people. Only a few that can make me hurt. Tonight this little Southern fucker made me hurt. I was dying. The whole theatre was.

Theo’s act has grown so much since I last saw it. I love that. What he’s doing is so unique to Theo. It’s an act. Yeah. A heightened version of himself. He’s also more of a character than most top stand-ups these days. A hybrid of the authenticity mode we’re in now, and the days of Emo, Judy Tenuta, Bobcat, early Howie Mandel, Jim Varney, etc, etc. Throw in a little Andy Griffin or Burl Ives on LSD and you’re almost there to what he’s doing. Speaking of that, he told a story last night that was one of the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.  One of the funniest stories I’ve ever heard.  This was this gonzo story about him doing acid at sixteen and ending up at his grandparents house that he hadn’t seen in ten years, as high as you can humanly be, and asking them if he can get into bed with them to fall asleep like he used to the last time he saw them when, he was six. It’s truly masterful.

His storytelling is it’s own unique genre. Southern gothic stand-up gonzo. Stories like the one about him him hooking up on a dating app, in the middle of night, high again, with a lady with no legs. These stories aren’t told in a careless, callous way either. They come from a place of warmth. A guarded, beaten down, battle weary warmth. A tortured, traveling soul, looking to be a good man somehow. The audience never feels any different. There’s never an undercurrent of hate or malice. It’s confusion. A bumbling kind of positioning he’s found himself to have here on the planet that he’s sort of going to be okay with.

The haircut say it all. ‘I could grow it out. But I’d still feel like this guy, so what’s the point?’

He’s touring all over the place now. I think seeing him live is a whole different experience then the podcast or the specials. Do yourself a favor. Go here to his website and find out what’s close and go see him.

https://www.theovon.com/

Or there’s a link to his tour dates and all his social media and podcasts here on the site!

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There’s something in the air. It can’t be denied. Some of the best comedians in the world have come out of the Boston scene. I don’t know what it is but it’s been happening long enough that it deserves looking into it. I just spent two weeks there playing the clubs, the bar shows, and the basements. Did a crash course in the Boston scene, and I loved it. Don Zollo a Boston comic who’s a veteran of the scene wants to do a documentary on the history of the Boston Comedy  universe and I think he’s onto something.

DAYS OF THE DING HO

When I met Jay Leno in the late seventies in LA he had fled Boston to New York and then LA. He had started in Boston and had played crazy clubs. Not comedy clubs. Strip clubs and mob joints. Music clubs. Anyplace he could get up. There really wasn’t a ‘comedy scene’. Later on though, from the days of Barry Crimmins and the Ding Ho, Jimmy Tingle and Lenny Clark, it was a different world altogether. I always remember Boston as being this magical comedy town. Disneyland for comics.

I used to come visit my buddy Bob Nickman who had moved there from Cleveland in the tip of the eighties to work his way into this bustling scene. It was unlike any other city. San Fran was a cool comedy town. They had a major comedy competition and some funky clubs, Robin Williams started there, Bobby Slayton and Kevin Pollack and of others when I was just getting going, Samuels and Cohen, Will Durst, but there wasn’t the bite to it that Boston comedy had. The feeling that it really mattered. That it wasn’t just gums flapping and jokes flying. Barry Crimmins, Jimmy Tingle, Lauren Dombrowsi, Jack Gallagher, Mike McDonald, Kevin Meany, Janeane Garafalo, Paula Poundstone, Don Gavin, Steve Sweeney, and Kenny Rogerson were all incredible comics. They could tear a room apart. Make a crowd wonder if they were gonna make it into work the next day. Lenny Clark, Tony V, all those guys, they were masters, and the Boston crowds were so good. I used to wonder if it was because they drank so much. It had to help. It was more than that though, they were smart, crisp, and sharp, they were a mirror of the comics. They too had a jaundiced view of the world. Were ready to laugh at it. Make fun of everything. Piss on anyone that had any kind of an attitude.

WHEN STAND UP STOOD OUT

Fran Solomita, a Boston comic who was around and working the rooms at that time made an excellent documentary of this whole first wave that lays this all out with majesty. It’s so worth taking a look at.

STEVEN WRIGHT

Oddly enough, with all of these ball breakers, and deep thinkers, and world class story tellers, the stand-up that sort of broke the Boston comedy scene onto the national stage was a little guy with an oddball style who told Salvador Dali-esque one-liners in a bit of a whisper. A Johnny Carson show booker was in town and saw him at the Ding Ho had him come out to LA and do the Carson show and Steven killed.  It more or less put the Boston comedy scene on the map.

BARRY CRIMMINS

One of my personal favorites to ever come out of Boston was Barry Crimmins. Just a really special guy. An amazing political comic. The Mort Sahl of his time. I really want to do a piece on Barry one day here. One of my favorite docs ever is the one Bobcat made. Call Me Lucky. If you’ve never seen it, you’re missing out. It’s so good. Barry was an amazing person and entertainer and he was such a force of nature. A major piece of the puzzle that created the Boston comedy scene. The Ding Ho alone is a bedrock piece in what would be Don Zollo’s documentary I’m sure.

THE NEXT WAVE (S)

After the Kenny Rogersons, and Don Gavin, Lenny, Tingle, Wright, Paula, Dennis Leary, Bobcat and that whole group, another class or even two, would follow that was even deadlier with comedy firepower. A group that, in hindsight, would make you think, ‘holy shit’, why would anyone start anywhere other than Boston?’ I mean they just kept coming. Dane Cook, Louis C.K, Bill Burr, Patrice O’neal, Joe Rogan, Bobby Kelly, and so many others, Joe List, Doug Stanhope, just killers.

TONY V

Tony V is a funny fucker. He’s a Boston legend. A typical example of the kind of comedy town Boston is. They have their own heros. Comics that are just saran wrapped perfect for the place. Tony is one of them. He lays it out simple, as if he was put on earth solely to make them understand some of the day to day shit that’s been placed in their way.  He’s so great. One of the highlights of my two week trip was sitting around smoking a cigar with Tony, two smart young Boston comics, Will Noonan, Andrew Della Volpe, and comedy club owner John Tobin,  in an old time Boston cigar joint in the North End. It was like waking up inside of one of Dennis Lehane’s novels.

LAUGH BOSTON AND THE BEST OF BOSTON HEADLINERS

I was on a show at Laugh Boston which is a cool comedy club in South Boston. It was the a group of some of the best new comics coming out of Boston and Tony V and myself and what I saw was damn impressive. There’s no reason to think the magic train doesn’t stop bring the goodies. I saw at least five stand-ups that could break big time with some years and a little luck. There was some serious talent that night. The best one though, who I would put money on, is Will Noonan. He has chops to fall in line with Burr and Louis C.K., Sam Morril, that crowd. He’s a tremendous writer which is the most important arrow in the quiver. He’s also got strong stage presence. A very American stand-up vibe. Going all the way back to Andy Griffith. He’s old fashioned and modern in the very same blink, which is dangerous. He has a new special coming out shot at Capo which I can’t wait to see.

KELLY MCFARLAND

Someone else that was great to watch that night was Kelly Mcfarland. It’s not fair to call her a new act because she’s been around a long time. She’s a pro and in fact I think she probably had the best set of the night. Her and Tony V.  It was a tough crowd, a Tues night crowd, and she was the one that really got them going. Such a strong performer.

The two weeks was, as I’ve said, a crash course. Illuminating. Educational. Humbling, and inspirational. Josh Mandel, also a funny young comic, does shows at a place called Article 24, which is a great little room. Will Noonan has a show in the basement of an elegant restaurant in Southie called Capo that is a gorgeous room and was a lot of fun to work. I had a great time there. The whole trip was perfect. It’s pretty daunting though. I have to say to think of all the history and all the world class Boston comics. It’s mind boggling. Nuclear comedy history. If you’re into stand-up at all, look into that world.

Hey, also, if YOU’RE IN LA on SAT. APRIL 8, at 8 pm come out to this show. It’s going to be fun. Some good friends are going to jump up as well.

BUY TICKETS TO MIKE BINDER AT THE ICE HOUSE

https://www.showclix.com/event/ice-house-mike-binder-and-friends-april-8-early-show/listing

 

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