Borat was at the San Diego Comic Con and he had a story to tell about comics in Kazakhstan.

My new favorite show, Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, will begin airing tonight on the Sci-Fi channel at 10 pm. If you haven’t already watched the episodes, I highly recommend giving it a view.

About six years ago I discovered author David Sedaris, and that’s when everything changed for me. I became instantly hooked. I look at everything pre-Sedaris as being the dark time. I quickly devoured “Naked” and “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” and then went back to “Barrel Fever.” His attention to detail and abosolute mastery of maximizing the hilarity in every description was, and still is, completely mind-blowing. If you haven’t read “Naked” or “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” do yourself a favor and get them immediately. He is by far the funniest writer I have come across. Sadly his current writing is not as good as it once was, but there’s still some worthwhile material in “Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim,” which came out two years ago.

Around that time he went on a book tour, and I had the occasion to see him in San Francisco. He spent about ten minutes with each person in line talking to them, asking them questions. While it was a pain to wait through, it was a pleasure to be the focus of his attention. When I got to the front of the line he began asking me about my job, and we started talking about his brother, the rooster. David was convinced the rooster’s new child’s first word was going to be “nigger.” We had some good laughs, and as we talked David signed my book. I thanked him shortly thereafter and opened my book to find this:

I did some digging around online and I found a video of him reading a great story on Letterman, as well as a short story that I’ve only seen on the Esquire website, and is now stored on keepmedia.com. With the help of bugmenot.com, I was able to access the full text of the story, which I will post in its entirety after the jump.

Enjoy the video, but stay for the story. They’re both something special.

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At every comedy show I go to people are talking about Dane Cook and Tourgasm. Dane’s on the lips and blogs of comedians everywhere. Apparently the way you capture the attention of every comedian in the country is not by making the smartest, funniest show you possibly can, but instead creating one of the worst programs ever.

Last week’s episode was yet another example of hubris, ego, scatalogical humor and forced activities. To quote Dane, ride with me people, because it’s that time again.

This episode was entitled “Competitively Speaking,” or alternately “Dane’s a poor loser.”
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I saw Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Jeff Garlin Saturday night at The Tomorrow Show. He told some stories about his life, including a hilarious chunk on “ingenues.” He has a very enjoyable conversational style that makes it seem like he’s just this funny friend who tells you stories about his life. You can download his set here.

Later in the evening, comedian Mary Van Note decided that she needed some help telling a joke and enlisted me to be her helper. I hesitantly went onstage, where I helped Mary put a dog collar around her neck, attached a leash to it, and then, at her provocation, spanked her.

I knew Mary was going to choose me. Earlier I had said hello to her, and when I saw her scanning the front row, I had a feeling I knew who she was going to choose. And I wasn’t wrong. But I had no idea where it would lead. I certainly didn’t think that I would end up onstage, lights blinding me, holding a leash in one hand while the crowd goaded me on to roughly spank Mary’s derriere with the other.

It got a little uncomfortable near the end, which is a testament to Mary’s committal, but was also due to the fact that I have a hard time spanking women onstage in front of people. As a result I had to leave the stage and seek out my spot on the porch with the little dogs. If you have any interest in hearing this moment in time, you can download that here.

And as part of my weekly reminder system, I’m going to be on kbeach.org from 1-3 pm pst Tuesday (yes, today) playing some music and talking about the crazy people in my classes. Feel free to tune in and listen.

Another week has passed and that means another episode of Tourgasm. I was considering writing another commentary for it, but the amount of time involved is daunting, and this episode didn’t really warrant the same amount of scrutiny. That’s not to say there weren’t some amazing moments in it. Because there were. What I’ve decided to do is each week give you the highlights of the episode. Anyway, enough of my yakkin’, let’s boogie.

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Eliot kills it again with an incredible post about Nick Nolte and his quest for youth. It includes so many mind-blowing photos that it was hard to choose a favorite, but if forced to, I’d go with this one:

The new Mountain Goats album leaked today. I haven’t had a chance to give it a full listen, but if it’s anywhere near as good as the last one I’m going to really like it.

You can download the whole thing here in one zip file.

Amy Sedaris was on The Colbert Report and it was awesome. Here’s a brief video of it, featuring some incredible tumbling moves from her, Paul Dinello, and Stephen Colbert:

Dane Cook is the number one comedian among people my age. He recently had the biggest selling comedy CD, hosted SNL, appears on talk shows all the time, and plays sold out college shows around the country to his massive fan base. But there’s one catch, he’s not funny. Seriously. It’s almost like a performance art piece he’s doing.

If you’re not familiar with his material, count yourself lucky. Dane is very “animated,” as his fans say, and stalks around the stage, a whirling dervish of exuberance and enthusiasm, acting out even the most minute details of his jokes. His smoke and mirrors seem to have distracted people from the fact that he is painfully, abysmally, unfunny. At first I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that someone so awful could become so popular. But then I started looking at his fanbase, and it’s the same people who embraced ambassadors of bland Dave Matthews and Jack Johnson. Basically, your standard college idiot.

Don’t believe me? Try watching this clip of him talking about restrooms, questioning the name (”is there anybody just resting in this room?”) and why they’re so wet (”was there like a shaggy dog in there after a bath?”), and experience for yourself just how bad Dane is.

So what of it? There are a ton of unfunny comedians out there. Where Dane sets himself apart, and becomes something truly special, is in his new HBO behind-the-scenes show, “Tourgasm,” of which he is the creator, director, self-described “leader,” and, I’d bet my bottom dollar, editor.

Dane capitalized on his growing success to set up a tour of US colleges, and brought along 3 other comedians and a camera crew. What, you may ask, happens when 4 comedians spend 30 days with each other on a luxury tour bus, participate in a number of forced activities, and through tears of laughter and sadness (no joke) attempt to get real? Next to nothing. “Tourgasm” is so incredibly bland and free of laughs that it hits bottom and comes right back up to the top again.

Lately I’ve seen LA comedian Andy Kindler performing all over town. Andy’s brought up Dane and Tourgasm every time, and has had me laughing far more than Dane ever has. Andy stalks around onstage a la Cook, points out the logical errors in Dane’s jokes (there are many), and highlights his favorite elements of Tourgasm. I could listen to Andy talk about Tourgasm all day long. As a result of seeing Andy’s discourse on Dane, I decided to give Tourgasm a view. I’m glad I did, because, quite simply, it blew my mind.

Tourgasm has all the elements of any bad reality show: 8 story consultants, forced activities, forced comraderie, forced drama, real tears, and more hugging than “Entourage.” If you think of it as a trainwreck, and watch it with the thought of Dane’s hand controlling every edit, it becomes one of the funniest shows currently on TV.

I’m going to attempt in words, pictures, and audio clips, to walk you through the brilliance that is episode 4 of Tourgasm. Click below for a shitload of screencaps and awesomeness.
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