Now we beat up on Neil Hamburger

Pleeseasaur is like... well, imagine Bill Murray's lounge singer character in a bunny suit in front of strange film projections all to a goofy MIDI soundtrack singing about things like THE BEEF FLAVORED ISLAND or Japan's favorite dish, the BOWL NOODLE HOT! Don't miss Neil AND the 'Saur together!

Canned Hamm, from Vancouver BC, is equally strange and wonderfully wretched.

Amarillo-era Neil was great, totally amazing comedy cutting edge "gee gaw" humor.

re..si..sting...urge to..quote.......more!

"... for people who've been smoking pot so long they've forgotten how to come up with their OWN mind-blowing "have you ever really looked at your hand/the government is like totally not cool maaaaan" observations"

Guess that doesn't apply to Neil Hamburger (who, wow, MAKES FUN OF BAD COMEDIANS, oh i get it now); for the other two, I'll buy it.

If anything it seems to be making fun of the conventions of comedy routines in general, bad or good -- why else all the audience cut-ups and the like?

the "sounds of..." (international airports, san francisco adult bookstores, etc.) field recording 7"s are very in-line with the early neil aesthetic.

basically, search all neil hamburger 7"s (plus Great Phone Calls) and forget the rest.

i don't think neil's making fun of bad comedians.

ok, now im going to go into my room and cry in mourning for amarillo and the greg of yore.

all of this of course is almost as good as the zip code rapists' version of "ford trucks, the best never rest".

And picking one of the easiest and most obvious targets on earth makes him funny (and not merely smug) why?

Chuck, please explain to us why *anything* is funny. (Also what constitutes a non-"obvious" target).

Well, Hicks and Cross may come off as obvious to us, but keep in mind, their acts are still hitting topics that most comedians wouldn't dare touch. And Cross's delivery is great.

TS: comedy "critics" vs. music "critics"...

>>Chuck, please explain to us why *anything* is funny<<

Read my books.

that is messed up because(!!!) i am a gemini and the gemini song does not apply much to me, whereas the aries song is not only the best song on the record but also it totally fits ALL aries (including you)!

>>I admit I haven't spent all THAT much time on any of them, so maybe I'm missing something -- I just wish somebody would tell me what.<<<

And right -- obvious targets can be handled in a non-obvious way. Obviously. I've just yet to see where those three guys do that....

-- chuck"

Super cop-out answer, so I'm glad it wasn't your final answer... as for the comedy "criticism" you mention, which one of those convinced you any of the listed performers (Groucho Marx, Cheech and Chong, whoever) was funny?

"you can analyze and write (and read) about these techno djs and their acts all you want but they won't make you dance any more."

"you can analyze and write (and read) about these resteraunts and their dishes all you want but they won't make you EAT any more."

my first trip to SF about 11 years ago, my hosts took me to the chameleon to see the ZCR who had hired two guys to learn all the ZCR songs. turkington and singer showed up about 2 songs in and started heckling them and eventually a fight broke out between "fans" of the ZCR outside.

secondly, i have a bootleg of the ZCR opening for Faith No More, Mr. Bungle during the height of Faith No More's popularity and the ZCR came out to perplexed looks and eventually boos thanks to their approach of "How many of you guys like to party!!!!!!?!?!?!?!?" and the crowd would cheer and turkington would reply "Get a life you alcoholic junkies!!!!", which was followed by a line about women wanting to get down with a similar reply which was not very PC but on the tape you can hear the crowd just groaning after the ZCR just hella harshed their collective buzzes.

And Chuck - David Cross has been doing obvious stuff in non-obvious ways for YEARS. His writing on Mr. Show is brilliant, as are his columns for magazines like Vice and the Onion. Are you writing him off based on hearing the one stand-up album? I think he's one of the most significant comedians of the last 20 years, easily.

Don't think I've ever read a single fucking WORD in Vice that I liked, but then again, it's been a long while since I tried.

Plus, many, many people (including in ILX) have said I LOOK like the guy, so maybe that just weirds me out, who knows.

See, this is what I DON'T get, since Hamburger's deal was obviously studio-created and designed at the start. If you come in knowing that was already the joke, then an actual performance is a bit pointless.

Hamburger's mode of confrontation was a little more subdued, more of a deliberate attempt to confuse the audience, rather than scare them.

Second time i saw Neil, he was headlining in Seattle. That unfortunately didn't work out as well, because every one in town knew his schtich and unfortunately stood there the whole time insincerely heckling Neil, which was extremely grating and embarrassing (for the audience and for me to be there enjoying it). Neil made up for it with his "song" and his movie title "shit" routine.

As to what this says about Neil? Well, admittedly, yeah, it's just one of those things where I could see not really caring unless you happened upon your Neil discovery (in my case, the "looking for laughs" 7" a decade ago.).

I'm more looking forward to what Turkington has planned moreso than what Neil Hamburger has planned... (not that the two could be uh be connected or anything, despite what the traitorsposters above might suggest)

So, um, to answer your question, Chuck, in regards to how dumb people could be to NOT get Neil.. um, come to San Diego during a Trans Am show, I guess.

(actually, scratch the Trans Am part)

Actually over time I've come to think Bob Odenkirk is the funnier of the two, but maybe that's just because he's done less lame stuff than Cross has since the show ended.

i saw hamburger's first (i think?) american show (although a friend asked him to do his bachelor party about 7 years ago but after some thought he declined). it was at old ironsides in downtown sacramento ca. 99-00. about a year or some later, i saw him opening for laddio bolocko and then again a few months later with eXtreme Elvis and Canned Hamm.

obviously, i haven't seen him for a couple a years but i noticed some development over these shows about as significant as his evolution from the telephuck you/great phone calls era to the "america's funnyman" debut. (kindly note: i saw him in the bay area where he's probably most "popular" or at least known):

the hamburger routine has become much more vulgar (i'm thinking the rhcp/julia roberts gags) than the earlier ("what's the difference between an astronot and a resident of san francisco?") era. also, it would appear as he is trying to kill off hamburger as the comedy has taken a backseat to the coughing attacks.

he was never physically confrontational (esp. in comparison with eXtreme Elvis who pissed on the front row, threw a bottle at a guy's head, and then killed a chicken and threw it into the audience.) the show became more subversive, frustratingly so due to the knowingness of the audience (ref: donut bitch's dismissal of hecklers upthread).

See: I didn't! (Is that self control, or what?)

aaaaaaaaand the laffs just keep on comin...

I just wanted to say "Harp Seal Killing is Good".

Let me get Jonathan Swift's lawyers on the line... See chuck, now that you have no point to make and nothing to base your opinion on, seeing as how you admit to being unfamiliar with Hicks material, it's like you're just being argumentative.

dj disk (who was then a member of Invisbl Skratch Pikklz) at the food not bombs benefit in dolores park threw great phone calls on and it was very funny (not to mention he is one of the better "turntablist"s in the world).

i saw buffalo daughter (all female post-rock/indie pop band from Japan) and they had a song which incorporated samples from "i'm in your band". it was very unexpected.

Honestly, Neil's playing clubs like the Improv (which is kind of like this standup comedy mecca in LA) as of last month so he's probably reached his goal of playing to mostly unaware audiences which is probably surreal and ideal for him. I don't think at this point he's gonna walk away from the $$$. As stated upthread, I haven't seen Neil perform in a few years but it seemed Neil was poised on a health emergency back then.

Or -- this is going to sound flippant, but I swear it's not -- is it more a matter of stoned college boys trading his records ten (or however many) years ago, thinking he was really really bad, and then realizing later that his joke was on them, and staying his fans, and now they're this record-collector cult afraid to admit when he starts to suck or fails to make them laugh as much as when the joke first sank in? THAT might make sense, maybe. (I mean, I notice Mr. Bungle and twits like that coming up a lot on this thread; aren't *their* fans mostly stoned college kids laughing at dumbass poop jokes?) It reminds me of Zappa's old audience or something. Or, I dunno, Ween's audience. Which might be why it all sounds so smug to me. But again, maybe I'm wrong.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of FNM, Mr. Bungle or Zappa so I can totally relate... Gregg used to live in SF with this guy named Trey who was a friend/bandmate of Mike Patton's. Gregg had this incredibly huge collection of obscure and forgotten records. He also had his own label that put out some very, very unusual records (take a peak at that amarillo records thread). Amarillo makes IPECAC look like Sarah Records. I'm very confident in assuming that the mr. bungle/faith no more connection was exploited as crassly as possible. gregg's taste in music was pretty far removed from your garden variety early 90s alternative rocker or zappa cultist... much more niche and unusual (now someone's gonna point out his career overview of the beegees on prindle).

I've got a Bill Hicks CD at home that never did a damn thing for me; the one time I played a Neil Hamburger CD I was astounded by the extent that its real stupidity overshadowed its fake stupidity. But hey, if it makes people laugh, that's great. I guess.

but to answer your first question: i said upthread that: A) his career is a serial, B) his first single is the funniest thing he's done, C)stepping into his career at this point is probably a little bizarre (in your words: "stupid").

I have to admit to you Chuck, I'm not good at telling people why they should like something. BUT if you walk away with anything from this thread: have someone make a copy of the first 7".

I wouldn't go that far but I did definitely find most of what I've seen pretty damned tedious. Odenkirk worked better on Ben Stiller's show.

Hey, my "Why Harp Seal Killing is Good" editorial in my high school paper (West Bloomfield Michigan *Spectrum*, 1977) predates both Hicks AND Stern. And I don't see anybody calling ME a comic genius, dammit.
-- chuck (cedd...), November 11th, 2003.

You grew up in West Bloomfield? Did you go to West Bloomfield High?

(ok thread fulfilled)

http://www.angelfire.com/tn/avatarlair/images/riptaylor.jpg

IIIIT'S FUNNNYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!

For four years: 1974-78. Honest!

he points out -- correctly i think -- that neil hamburger works as a kind of defamiliarization device for standup comedy. that once all the devices a standup comic uses are bared so brazenly, it's hard to hear other comics again in the same way.

i think in that sense n.h. has a real value. although the "joke" does get old--in fact in his essay k.s. says he doesn't really like the new n.h. record (which apparently is light on the would-be funnies and heavy on the shaggy dog stories).

xpost

yeah, dr. bill, that's about how i feel. it's a really good schtick, but it's a limited schtick.

A: Because the taste reminds him of the taste of cum on his home planet!

A: N'Sync

That's for damn sure. As the incidents quoted above indicate.

Ever since, Hamburger has been building a small but ferocious cult of fans. He has released a string of albums on the indie-rock label Drag City and once managed to get himself booked on "Jimmy Kimmel Live," where he told perhaps the most tasteless Michael Jackson joke ever heard on network television. (Quite a feat.)

What was the joke? Did anyone see this appearance?

i am being frightfully inarticulate.

p.s. it's not the same as hamburger, but i think andy kaufman was sort of an anti-comic by the end, too.

Otherwise, Neil is just best seen live.. preferrably opening for other rock bands.

his later stuff just before he died was a lot worse

The even later stuff after he died flat out sucked.

a joke worthy of neil hamburger himself!

This sums up what I've found funny about the stray bits of Hamburger I've heard.

Which I guess is why he infuriates me so much -- aside from the blatant cheapness of his jokes, there's a sense of inaccurate mockery to his act -- like he's making a stupid face, pointing at stand-up comics, and saying "this is you", when a) it's actually him, and b) it's not them. Or, rather, it has elements of (some of the worst of) them, but skewed in a way which makes it unfair and inaccurate even by the standards of bullying.

Not that I'd like him if he were an accurate bully, mind you -- but he probably wouldn't upset me quite as much as he does.

Though I guess the context in which he's presented matters? -- I've never seen him at rock concerts, only at comedy shows. Fairly "alternative" (I hate that word; it's so imprecise) shows at that; whatever criticisms can be leveled against the comics at those shows, Hamburger isn't making any of them. But he has a rabid -- almost cultish -- fan base, which tends to fill up many of the shows he's on. A lot of those guys are not there to see (and have no real appreciation for?) stand-up comedy; I've never been to a show where he's been there and the other comics (legitimately funny people who do well -- and deserve to do well -- on a regular basis) didn't struggle a lot more than they usually do.

But I guess that's it -- Hamburger's act seems to me very reductivist, very negative about the possibilities inherent in comedy, while at the same time exposing a naivete if not an outright ignorance concerning those possibilities. I mean, really? You're going to put this guy next to a Richard Pryor, or a Woody Allen, or a Louis CK, and act like he has anything to say to them? It's disrespect, mostly.

-- gygax! (gygax0...), November 10th, 2003 2:11 PM. (gygax!)

RIP dudes!

a: the tears of a nation.

Now Eugene Mirman (aka, in the words of the Onion," 'the indie rock comedian' who's opened for Modest Mouse, The Shins, and Yo La Tengo") is truly deserving of hatred.

is there anything wrong or shameful in "playing by his game plan"?

neil hamburger /= zip code rapists

Although most of his viewers tune in through ManiaTV, Green is enlisting friends such as red-carpet interviewer Melissa Rivers and comedian Neil Hamburger to host their own live shows, which he plans to broadcast on TomGreen.com.

Oh my.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdU3RIcTg6M

http://twitpic.com/26pik9

Neil_Hamburger

Drunk? RT @paulaabdul: OMG you guys wanna know what I'm gonna be for Halloween?

about 18 minutes ago

Hero.

I heard he was forced to end his set early at the Reading Festival "for his own personal safety."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdlnkgOa8Ic

"pig people"

Sterling work by the patrons of Reading Festival singing "you're shit and you know you are" at Neil, this being the entire premise of his act

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/shaky-advice-from-neil-hamburger/id409059508?mt=8

his twitter feed is really something. he had a lot of Britney Spears fans riled up for a good while

i love the AXE-baiting (they deserve it) but i kind of wish he'd pick some new targets every once in awhile

check out the "On Cinema" podcasts with Tim Heidecker if you haven't already.

the fact that he always has the same 4 tired subjects is what makes it extra funny

YES. i've been reading these incessantly for the past few days. love when he blends his vitriol with self-deprecation.

example:
I used it as a blanket. @Brillo: Did you see our ad featuring Brillo products in your Sunday newspaper this weekend? RT if you did!

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t297/albrislin/5-4-2007-10.jpg