simonpanrucker.com/beans.html

There are many ways to cure the long winter blues. Playing videogames, talking with friends, or putting on your favourite episode of America’s Funniest Home Videos. Now you can add squishy, helpless, screaming cartoon beans to the list. As shallow and pointless as this site may appear to be, does it reveal a darker, more sadistic side of humans? Ah, who the fuck cares, it’s funny, just enjoy.

•Dillon Li

help i need help

helpineedhelp.com/bored.html

Sometimes you just need help. But don’t worry, your friend The Internet is there for. Are you racist? Are you too nice? And so on and so forth.  You’ve been helped. This site has a solution for you.

•Corrigan Hammond

the best of craigslist

craigslist.org/about/best/all

Behold the juxtaposition of intellect and ineptitude, equal parts satire and ignorance. If you have not yet wasted hours on end reading the pages of absurdity that comprise “The Best of Craigslist,” you are not experiencing all the fine rants, mistakes, and ridiculous sales the world has to offer. Examples include: an up-for-grabs collection of one thousand ladybugs, accidentally purchased when drunk; and an open letter to the man shaving on the Dufferin bus. This truly is the best of the worst of Craigslist.

•Julie Compton

you look nice today

youlooknicetoday.com

Devoted to discussions surrounding “emotional hygiene,” You Look Nice Today is self-described as a program for listeners of the awkward age of adulthood. Despite having found their comedic soulmates on Twitter through 140 characters or less, these three guys have they have plenty of wit to dish out about co-workers, innocent passerbys, children, and pathetic nostalgia. Storytelling punctuated with contagious laughter, they are your three best guy friends who never grew up, and continue getting funnier.

•Julie Compton

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“A guy walks into a talent agency and says, ‘Have I got an act for you…’” So begins the vilest joke ever conceived. That’s the basis of the joke, and the only part that remains the same from one telling to another – at least aside from the name of the guy’s act, which is the Aristocrats. That’s it. Of course the talent agent usually asks what the act looks like, and of course the guy tells him. And of course it’s a family act teeming with incest, bestiality, and necrophilia, floating in blood, sweat and various other bodily fluids. And it’s always disgusting.

There you have the now-infamous Aristocrats joke, used for years as an inside joke between comedians, as a means of honing their improvisational skills and one-upping each other with material they would never dare use in front of an audience. But then in 2001, mere days after the World Trade Centre attacks, Gilbert Gottfried used the joke on stage to recover after an ill-timed bit about 9/11 and comedy’s dirty little secret started to gain cult appeal. By 2005 the Aristocrats had gained enough attention to have an eponymous documentary made in which several well-known comedians, from Paul Reiser to Sarah Silverman and Bob Saget, tell their own versions of the joke.

Neither terribly funny nor easy to watch, The Aristocrats gets downright appalling by the fourth or fifth telling of the joke. So what the hell? Why do such a large and acclaimed collection of entertainers commit to such depravity as to risk being un-entertaining?

And it isn’t just this one film. From George Carlin’s “Seven Words You Can’t Say on Television,” to Richard Pryor’s profanity-lace and racially charged humour, obscenity has always had a large appeal in the world of comedy while simultaneously drawing immense criticism.  It begs the question: “Why are comedians, and their audiences, so drawn to smutty humour?”

Well for one thing, there is almost always more to it than dirty words.

Lenny Bruce was nightclub comedian renowned for his pioneering political and sexual humour until his arrest for using the word “cocksucker” on stage in 1961. Throughout the next five years and several obscenity-related trials, Bruce testified in court and on stage about the merits of dirty humour. “There’s a difference,” he said in a 1966 performance, “between a big piece of art with a little shit in the middle… and a big piece of shit with a little art in the middle.”

For Bruce, who, despite dying before his trials came to an end, is credited with most of the free speech laws surrounding public performance in the United States, it was a matter of the bigger picture, the message that was conveyed through obscene words and risqué imagery. Sometimes a valid message is best conveyed with the forcefulness and conviction of obscenity. Dismiss dirty language and you may be dismissing valid commentary. “Take away the right to say ‘fuck’,” Bruce once said, “and you take away the right to say ‘fuck the government.’”

Oftentimes, meaning and vulgarity go hand-in-hand – the dirtiest comedy acts being the most poignant and thoughtful. Carlin’s Seven Words routine was rife with jabs at the hypocrisy of television censorship. Pryor and his disciples, such as Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle, have cursed their way through hours of material on racism and equality. It’s all part of the inherently irreverent, edgy, rebellious culture of comedy. As long as a comedian is testing the limits of topics such as race, gender, religion, politics and sex, why not throw in a few curse words? In an industry which revolves around pushing boundaries and getting a reaction from the crowd, obscenity is part of the professional jargon.

If there is any value to The Aristocrats film beyond perverse education, it is as a portrait of professional comedy. Dig beneath the sensationalism of the cussing and there is a legitimately relevant and fascinating world being portrayed in this film. In this sense The Aristocrats has more in common with a Discovery Channel nature documentary than a stand-up film. It captures the elusive comedian in his natural habitat and examines the social mores of the species. The way that they speak to each other, the way they formulate their acts. In watching the differences between each telling of the joke, you can come to understand at least part of the competitive camaraderie of the stand-up profession. And profanity runs roughshod over that entire world (keep in mind too that the joke’s recent popularity came about as a political statement). Faced with the challenge of tiptoeing around the tragic events of 9/11, Gottfried confronted the issue of taste and appropriateness head-on, seeming to say not only, ‘nothing is sacred,’ but also, ‘it’s still okay to laugh.’

On the surface, a foul-mouthed comedian may seem like a sideshow attraction, gratuitous and undignified, comparable to the act described in the Aristocrats joke. But very rarely is there any such thing as filth for the sake of filth. Whether it is a means of projecting the right image, or getting an important point across, obscene humour carries power and depth. It makes a statement.

•Peter Goffin

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The worst part is, shows like the aforementioned wreck are desensitizing a nation with its comedic ineptitude of uninspired writing, riddled of clichés and annoying catch phrases. I put no fault on actors though; typically these things are out of their hands. Now more often than not I find myself laughing at sitcoms I resented as an adolescent. Strangely Friends makes me laugh, previously never having done so.  Should I feel guilty? Probably not. I would be more embarrassed to admit adoration for Two and a Half Men or Accidently on Purpose, which holds true of anyone with a semblance of dignity. Luckily there is smart television, too. The Office is terrific. And, in terms of satire, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have refined American humour; witty and intelligent pseudo news that’s more probing than one might think.

What about the cinema though? I sometimes ask myself, what was the last good laugh I had in the theatre? The answer? Borat and Superbad, two of the best American comedies of the last decade. Sacha Baron Cohen is a brilliant provocateur, fearless in where he’ll take an audience. Director Greg Mottola of Superbad fame is a name to watch; his perceptive eye and ear captures the intrinsic nature of high school teens better than any other director working today. The next John Hughes?  Well, he’s certainly off to a good start.

To me the greatest comedy of all time is Animal House. Call me old fashioned, but John Landis’ ode to college debauchery keeps me in stitches with each repeated viewing. I think Roger Ebert described it best, summing up its comedic brilliance as “a precarious balance between insanity and accuracy, between cheerfully wretched excess and an ability to reproduce the most revealing nuances of human behavior.”

What’s the old adage? Often imitated, never duplicated? Well, that’s pricelessly the case here. Yet, with all its clones: Old School, Van Wilder, and American Pie – Animal House’s influence is almost taken for granted, due in part to its once original, now diluted premise. I bet you didn’t know its place of origin stems from our very own University though. Yes, chalk one up to McMaster and the once infamous Whidden Hall as inspiration for toga parties and drunken sing-alongs to “Louie, Louie.” I couldn’t be prouder.

Hollywood’s long-standing formula for comedy has been to typically clench onto a director or actor whose become hot over night, preferably male of course. Look at Jack Black or more recently, Judd Apatow.  Striking gold with The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up, he has created a subculture of mainstream humour where male affection has become embraced, with sex and women presided as an afterthought or elusive goal.  “Bro-mance” has entered our lexicon describing homosocial intimacy of male friends, laying groundwork for such recent pictures as I Love You Man, Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Pineapple Express, just to name a few.

Are these films suppressing a homosexual yearning, or am I being over analytical? Whatever it may be, one thing is certain, Apatow creates good, sometimes great pictures, employing a cast of actors who have become stars in their own right: Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, Seth Rogen, and Jonah Hill.

Before that though we had the “Frat Pack,” a less insightful mixture of males, which centered around Will Ferrell, a man of immeasurable talent who simply became an oversaturated commodity. Remember Land of the Lost?  With films like Wedding Crashers, Starsky & Hutch, and Anchor Man once dominating the box office, the Frat Pack seem like a distant memory as Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller have moved onto more serious projects. It all comes in cycles though. Keep in mind that Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker were popular at one time too. Yeah, comedy has gotten way better.

What about women though, aren’t they funny? Yes, very. When Tina Fey isn’t asked to solicit her talents to the dire Saturday Night Live, she is genuinely effective with 30 Rock as writer and star. It’s a man’s business though. With the poor box office performance of Amy Pohler and Tina Fey’s film Baby Mama, Poheler’s next feature, Spring Breakdown, comprised entirely of female leads, didn’t even see a theatrical release. I’ve been told it’s far superior too. And that’s no joking matter.

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And for good reason. While watching an episode somewhat recently of Comedy Central’s Important Things with Demetri Martin with…um, Demetri Martin, there was a skit that featured a couple having S/M sex. The audience is told from the get-go that the couple’s safety word is Bill Pullman. Probably wouldn’t have been my first choice.

So not long after the girl commenced with the ass whipping, the guy decided that he couldn’t handle the pain anymore. So he begins to yell out what he thinks is the safety word: “Bill Paxton! Bill Paxton!” Of course, the ass whipping continues as he very desperately cries aloud, “That guy who was in Twister? Uhh…Independence Day? Oh God, please, it was one of those movies!”

Great minds think alike.

Up until that point, I had only ever been a casual Demetri Martin fan. But as soon as you watch Important Things, you realize just how unusually funny he is, even if he is stealing my material. The fact that the show was renewed for a second season, which began airing just last month, is an affirmation for non-sequitur comedy. Sure it had its roots maybe in Monty Python and, if you want to go even further back, the BBC’s The Goon Show, but those acts were more surrealist than anything. The generation of the Steven Wrights from a couple decades ago created an almost languid, deadpan irony in one-liner comedy, but this grim style bordered on depressing. I’m not even going to talk about Andy Kaufman; his comedy was more genius than weirdness.

It wasn’t until Mitch Hedberg hit it big in the late 1990s when non-sequitur jokes were told with a sort of exuberance. Jumping back and forth between jokes and topics so quickly, sometimes you couldn’t decide if what he was saying was what was so funny, or if it was more so the fact that Hedberg revelled in his delivery as if he were a child on Christmas morning. He just always seemed so…happy.

So with Hedberg leaving a void, in comes Demetri Martin, now the non-sequitur King of Comedy (without the drugs too!). Don’t let my opening anecdote deceive you; Martin’s skits aren’t his innovative qualities. He first caught people’s attention by often playing a guitar during his performances. Now, music in comedy is nothing new, but unlike most other comedian musicians, Martin doesn’t play satiric or joke songs with amusing lyrics—in fact, he doesn’t even play songs at all. That’s right, he’s simply telling jokes and he just happens to be playing a guitar at the same time. He almost has the same straightforward delivery as Wright, but it’s okay: there’s an upbeat guitar melody to accompany! It’s this stark, simplistic contrast that Martin does so well, and in turn you can’t help but to appreciate the warming charm that he exults.

But it’s the actual operation of comedy which Martin has truly revolutionized. He has in the past done whole comedy skits using charts and diagrams, literally graphing out, for example, the relationships between cuteness of a girl vs. tolerance for cat stories, and the thickness of your neck vs. the number of books you’ve read.

His show unsurprisingly is very categorical. Each episode is about an important thing: coolness, money, power, chairs, anything really. And for the next twenty-two minutes, Martin will present a kind of stream-of-consciousness thought experiment full of musings that involve more charts and graphs to illustrate his point. He’s almost the Aristotle of comedy: he will begin each episode by defining the important thing with an organizational chart displaying the different meanings of the word, and will then proceed to deconstruct or elaborate them. How could you make someone sound less powerful? Well, Martin shows us with cue cards to simply put the acronym DJ in front of their name, such as DJ Abraham Lincoln. What’s the difference between a “rocking chair” and a “more rocking chair?” Martin draws a picture of both: the former is just a rocking chair; the latter is a rocking chair playing a guitar and drums.

He still stole my Paxton/Pullman bit though.

•Kevin Elliott

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Anthony Mlekuz is a Hamilton born, McMaster student on the rise in the stand up comedy industry. A few weeks ago he was named Hamilton’s Funniest Amateur Comedian at the Yuk Yuk’s regional finals of the Great Canadian Laugh-Off Competition. In late March, he is competing at Yuk Yuk’s in the Toronto Comedy Brawl. 820 AM’s Mike Nabuurs referred to Mlekuz as “one of the funniest young men he had seen in a long time.”

During his set at Yuk Yuks Hamilton, he spoke about joking with his deaf ex-girlfriend, and how the dynamics of fighting were drastically altered because of her hearing impairment. He joked: “What I used to do was, we used to get in arguments and what I’d do is start a point and then I’d just walk out of the room and she’d say ‘I can’t read your lips, you prick!’… but now I’m, now I’m alone.”

Though Mlekuz’s transitions from bit to bit were a little random and rough, his set was short, so he probably cannot be faulted for that. Some of his humour is less savory, using the behaviour of cerebral palsy and mental retardation as sites of comparisons in jokes. Other than that, his range of topics is broad, ranging from anal sex, to ghosts.

When creating his material, Mlekuz says he looks to include his personality in everything: “I never want to force funny, because people are smart and can tell when someone is forcing something. I am a huge people watcher and beyond being a creepy habit it does make for some interesting finds, and with McMaster having a lot of people it is only natural that some of it would sneak into my act.”

Mlekuz began his comedy career this past August, and has averaged a show a week, the vast majority of which is unpaid. He explained that amateur nights are the best way to get started, because there is no real pressure: “If you suck people just leave thinking ‘well he was an amateur what did you expect?’”

A Hamilton native, Mlekuz espouses the advantageous of the steel city’s comic scene: “We are really lucky here in Hamilton because we have a great comedy scene right now, a lot of the comics are younger and it makes for very topical shows that usually flow really well. On top of that we have a number of really well run rooms, so there’s always a show in town.”

Of the industry, Mlekuz says that it was easy to break into, but extremely difficult to gain ground: “Seinfeld once said comedy is the only job that you start right in the middle and it’s your work that either takes you up or moves you down in the business. Anyone can get on stage, the difficulty lays in sustaining a presence, not only for your five minutes but more so over time. The industry as a whole can be fickle, and you really only build yourself through persistence, luck, and timing…especially persistence.”

McMaster has produced several successful, comedic minds such as that of Eugene Levy, Martin Short and Dave Thomas. Of Short, Levy and Thomas Mlekuz said: “The best part about these three guys is that they are all different in the way they approach comedy, yet all found a way to make it work and find success. Their time together on SCTV, which I always watched reruns of as a kid, produced some of the funniest characters ever.”

In terms of his personal comedic influences Mlekuz said: “Right now I have been listening to a lot of David Cross, which is weird because I couldn’t be less like him onstage. But he has this ability to tell a joke, and whether good or bad he is unfazed by the audience; it’s like he’s doing a job and love him or hate him he’s going to keep doing it his way. I never want comedy to feel like a job for me, but the ability to control a room for as long as he can is something I respect.”

Ultimately, Mlekuz hopes to continue performing: “The goal for me is to keep doing stand-up, if all that other stuff comes it would be great, but I love being onstage that’s why I started…The focus for me right now is to keep working on my material and hopefully take as much away from my entrance into the YukYuks Great Canadian Laugh-Off as possible.”

You can catch Mlekuz’s show Friday, Mar. 5th at 1280 starting at 9 p.m.

•Grace Evans

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Dilemmas

4/5

On the surface, Guiltmaker’s Dilemmas could be lumped into the seemingly all-encompassing umbrella of post-hardcore. But to do so would be a great injustice to what lies just beneath the surface here on this Tampa, FL band’s sophomore release. Instead of short emotive bursts, Guiltmaker’s music plays like a thunderstorm in slow motion. Haunting, delay-heavy guitars dance around chugging bass lines and soaring vocals to create a sound that finds beauty in chaos. The songs seem drawn out, but have an almost symphonic quality to it, as its extended forms seemingly shift movements rather than just switch tracks. This is a difficult record to review, let alone classify. Dilemmas is raw and passionate enough for hardcore fans, yet pretentious enough to please post-rock scenesters. Bottom line though, this relatively little known record may be one of the best new releases that no one’s talking about.

•Chris Hoy

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Stay Us

4/5

Adding to Arts & Crafts’ impressive repertoire of bands is Zeus, a Toronto based band offering their first full length album with Say Us (and that’s certainly what the band desires, hoping to leave listeners telling their friends about Zeus). Made up of the same four guys who comprise The Dark Horse, Jason Collett’s backing band, Zeus offer listeners a great debut album. If the Genesis cover on the EP wasn’t a clear enough hint towards the direction of Zeus, then Say Us proves the classic rock pop influences on their style.  A cohesive and enjoyable offering, the album combines upbeat and catchy pop inspired tunes like the opener “How Does It Feel” (already featured in Nissan Sentra  television ad) and “Marching Through your Head,” to bluesier rock sounds found in “Heavy on You ” or “River By The Garden.” Put this on repeat.

•Ashley Robbins

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RevWear, in association with MacGreen, promotes the idea of eco-friendly fashion. This year’s show is set in a post-apocalyptic dystopia where humans have destroyed the earth through over-consumption and carelessness. The club’s aim is to open our eyes to what could happen to the world if we continue down the same path we are treading. Change is necessary and it has to happen soon if we ever hope to reverse the damage that we have done to the planet.

Thirty designers, many with no prior experience, are creating something beautiful out of what most of us consider to be nothing. They’re making Gucci out of garbage. They are using staples instead of thread and paper instead of fabric. Designers have blended many artistic elements to create both ready-to-wear pieces and wearable art made out of entirely reusable items.  Many themes, besides the elimination of excess waste, are present in this radical show, including the prevention of animal cruelty, gender struggles and anti-violence. The fashion show will feature both standard runway modeling as well as choreographed dance numbers that will all come together to make it an extremely powerful show with an even more powerful message.

First-time designer, Sarah Timmons, had this to say about the message RevWear hopes to promote: “If we put in some effort we can really reduce our waste. We don’t realize how many items we can reuse for a different purpose. After joining the club I began to look at things differently, many everyday items can be used in ways we wouldn’t normally think of.”

The show is designed to make people think about how much they waste and what they can do to change these destructive habits. Every little bit counts, whether it is buying second-hand clothes or bringing a reusable coffee mug to Union Market for the morning caffeine fix. Our actions have consequences, both positive and negative, and we need to be more aware of this fact. Sure, we can’t all make a dress out of milk bags, but we can recycle this newspaper after reading it instead of throwing it in the trash.

In the past, RevWear has put on a daytime fashion show in the Student Centre, but this year the club decided to take it in a different direction. This past Thursday, Feb. 25, an art crawl occurred in and around the McMaster Student Centre giving students a glimpse into what the evening fashion show will entail. Animated models toured around buildings on campus raising awareness for the show while piquing the interest of many who witnessed it. More than one student was almost certainly intrigued by a person trolling about the Student Centre with an old television as a mask. The art crawl opened up more potential for students to interact with both models and designers and witness a sort
 of moving art exhibit.

The 7th annual RevWear fashion show will be held on at 8 p.m. on Saturday, Mar. 6 above Jackson Square in what used to be a Bank of Montréal space. Tickets are available in advance for $10 at Compass in the McMaster University Student Centre or at Déjà Vu Used and New Clothing Accessories (262 King Street West). The show will be followed by an after party at Candy Bar in Hess Village, and free entry will be given to those with a RevWear admission ticket. Proceeds from the show will be going towards projects that promote eco-friendly fashion workshops in the Hamilton community. So give it a shot, you might just get hooked. Or, if you have a flair for design or modeling, get involved! Perhaps you will be
 on the runway or behind the scenes for next year’s fashion show.

•Roxanne Hathway-Baxter

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Moist Theatre consists of upper year and recently graduated McMaster students Matt Andaloro, Martin Capdevila, Carson Gale, Ben McCutchen, Cliff Murphy, Colin Murphy as well as an exchange student from Leeds University, Patrick Turpin (and yes, ladies, he’s single). With the exception of Patrick, all of the boys are from Ontario and none of the boys are studying Theatre and Film (their studies range from commerce, to mechanical engineering or health sciences). It was my great pleasure to spend the next hour talking to these boys about their craft, and comedy in general.

So, how did you guys get together in the first place?

It all started out of MIT, McMaster Improv Team, and a group of us wanted to start something on the side as well where we could put on more professional quality shows, practise different things on our own and separate from the club. This was around mid-October, and are first big show was on November 30th at 1280, though the first time we performed as Moist was at the Moonshine Cafe in Oakville with the Bad Dog Theatre Company.

So, why Moist Theatre?

We were trying to figure out names for a month. There was ‘Say Yes,’ ‘Say Yes to Everything’ . . . then there was ‘Just Us’ and we were like, what about ‘Justice?’ Because it sounds like ‘Just Us!’ Then we were like, what about ‘Just Justice’ and I mean really . . . the list of names we had was just shit.

But then, Matt was in a scene in MIT of One-Word Letter [a game with two people in a scene writing a letter to someone by going back and forth word by word], and we were sitting there talking about Robinson Memorial Theatre, so when someone said ‘Moist’ Matt said ‘Theatre’ and everyone laughed. So Matt suggested it to the team, and everybody had a one liner to say back to it. So everybody ended up enjoying it, so it just kind of happened that that became our name.

When it comes to comedy, who would you say influences you?

The people you meet in your life that just seem like characters, people that don’t even feel real and then you take them and put them on stage and they get big laughs. [The group also draws from] Steve Martin’s early stuff, Whitest Kids You Know, Derrick Comedy, Picnic Face, College Humour, SNL, other various internet sources and Tim Key.

It’s also always good to see comedy you don’t like. See if you can be critical and identify exactly why you don’t like it. If you see something you don’t like and you can identify why that is, then you can often use that as a good means to create something that is good, because ultimately you want to create comedy that you’d want to see.

So what are your goals with this troop?

In a perfect world, something like this would be how you make your living. We’d like to keep doing this as long as possible. If the venue is there, we want to keep doing this post-grad, even over Med-School or Teaching or anything else. With the exception of Patrick, none of us are in theatre and I think we all had that moment in high school where we were like, ‘Oh I sorta wanna go into theatre,’ but never had the courage to do that. It’s a risk, but it’s like dangling in front of us, this tiny little bait on a hook that’s like, ‘Ooh, you could be happy . . . but poor.’

Any final words?

Moist Theatre is absolutely amazing, everything we’ve been looking for. We all get along so well and our audiences are amazing. Thank you to anyone who’s come out to see us perform anywhere, whose become a fan on our Facebook page, whose told their friends about us, whose watched our videos online, any of that stuff, because we really appreciate all the support. It just encourages us to do it more; we wouldn’t be around without our supporters.

Check out facebook.com/moisttheatre, and keep in mind that they’re always looking for opportunities to perform, so if you are need of some improvisational hilarity give these boys a call! Keep an eye on their website for details of their next show, which will likely be in April.

•Harrison Cruikshank

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Speak Your Mind

3/5

Ian Kelly’s latest album Speak Your Mind offers listeners contemplative, somewhat sombre lyrics ranging from laments about unrequited love to our current ecological crisis. It is a good album to listen to if you are in the mood to philosophically reflect on human nature, however I wouldn’t recommend playing this album to get a pre-drink started. Almost every song begins with an acoustic guitar and Kelly’s vocals, mirroring Jack Johnson’s style. However, the tempo then increases and as more and more instruments are added – ranging from a pleasantly folksy sounding banjo and piano combination in “Take Me Home,” to the muddled, somewhat campy use of a turntable and techno beat in “Wonderful Humans.” Many of the songs’ lyrics are quite reflective but the pop-rock build-up in the chorus of several songs prevents the nature of these lyrics from being properly realized.

•Amy Graziani

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