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BrianBouton

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Posts posted by BrianBouton

  1. Posted

    It was a "solo polo" with PFT for the first since Adam Scott was a no-show, so I'm curious what happened in the second?

     

    Aukerman said the ticket sales for the second show were lower than the first due to what he guessed was competition with Sunday's Game of Thrones and, more likely, Mother's Day. :)

     

    This was my second live taping of CBB and it wasn't as enjoyable as last year's tour with The Birthday Boys and PFT bringing out Cake Boss. I felt terrible for PFT and Scott who must have been left in the lurch at the last minute scrambling how to make a show out of just the two of them for a packed Skirball theater.

     

    Unfortunately, they brought out Ice-T* and Werner Herzog to fill the time which are two of PFT's lesser characters as opposed to Gary Marshall, Cake Boss, and Lord Andrew Lloyd Weber. Still, I sympathize that PFT had just done Weber and Marshall recently.

     

    Tough gig but the crowd was eating it up and eager to laugh at everything including old in-jokes and callbacks. It was very cool to see so many fellow CBB listeners in one place together since podcasts are such a solitary experience.

     

    *Ice-T was a rough first-time experience for my girlfriend who knew nothing about the show and then sees a white guy doing an impression of a black rapper with no context. Then Scott throws in a "is acting anything like slinging crack" question...you can imagine the rest of the night's conversation.

  2. Posted

    Robbie Robertson (The Band) was in the studio recording his first solo album with Daniel Lanois at the same time U2 was recording "Joshua Tree." Check out the tracks "Testimony" and "Sweet Fire of Love" to hear what amount to some great hidden U2 cuts of the period with Bono and Edge playing on both.

     

    The album is great on its own and well worth a listen if you missed it the first time around.Robbie_Robertson_album.jpg

    • Like 2

  3. Posted

    Definitely a first for me to be listening to a podcast walking down the street and being practically doubled over in laughter. Sure, I've chortled or snickered before, but I've never had to get my shit together in front of others.

     

    I feel like Andy and his cohort have given us one of the greatest listening experiences ever regardless of how you rank them. Talk about going out with a bang! (Well, besides a Comedy Bang Bang host doing the best Scrooge McDuck version of an Irish accent that devolves into a pirate.)

    • Like 1

  4. Posted

    What rings sour to me in your comments is your dismissive-ness of Danny's episode, chalking up this 'weak entry' as a reminder to US that Andy is human. Speak for yourself. Anyone who has forgotten that Andy is human and needed a reminder can say that about any of these episodes, because it's a matter of taste.

     

    Jesus, man, my comment about Andy being human was a compliment recognizing his comedic genius with the exception of this particular character in this particular episode. We're both arguing the same side of our love for the man's talent.I think we can move past this in being fans.

     

    As for why I love Don Dimello---Whereas Danny is a one-dimensional angry Irishman who likes party entertainment, Don Is your everyday pornographic children's theater operator who commits hilarious acts of intellectual property theft and runs a ranch for broken down Rockettes. This is in addition to the whole world he's carved out for this character including side characters Cactus Tony, Andi Callahan, and more. And that voice...oh God, the voice. "...a little something for Daddy..." is one of the best lines ever.

  5. Posted

     

    In addition to people weighing in on the entire Project before it's finished, now you are weighing in on episodes you admitted to not even finishing? To quote any number of Andy Daly characters: What's the matter with you?!

     

     

     

    Mahoney is an Irish name. Andy & Co were playing Irish-American New Englanders, not Italian-American stereotypes (which I assume is what you meant, because Italian stereotypes would be them spaking in Italian accents and shouting "Mama Mia!").

     

    The first segment was chaotic on purpose, and set everything up fine. We entered into chaos because that is Danny's life. There were four people to recognize. Andy is Danny. Gourley is his friend Fireplug. Fireplug has a wife played by Erinn Hayes; unmistakable, as she is the only woman in the first segment. One person left: Jon Daly. His character is another friend, DONNIE Mahoney (no relation to Danny). This naming was intentionally done to be confusing, just like Andy and Jon probably get their names confused all the time in real life by other people. The 'no relation' was also probably because they get that in real life. It was a little pinch of meta-comedy. So we had Andy and Matt, Erinn, and Jon Daly. They are all assholes gathered by Danny to show the listener how to have a party. That was the premise of the episode.

     

    Get Fit Now with Bill Carter was funny because Bill had a work out plan for people, every step of it was insane, and he pulled off giving the instructions. Andy-as-Bill throws a bunch of balls in the air right at the start and juggles them throughout the podcast, touching upon each one and making them great callbacks and punchlines (HE HAD THE LISTENER DIG UP A KNIFE SO HE COULD SLAUGHTER THE WOLF PUPS?! OH MY GOD). Bill was not making his guests exercise, he was making the listener. Therefore Bill got no push back on the workout premise, because he just assumes it's happening, because he's doing the listener a service.

     

    Shut Up and Have Fun with Danny Mahoney worked the opposite way. Danny also thinks he is doing the listener a service by providing instruction and making his guests party, with the assumption that the listener was participating too. But his attention to the listener is mostly swept aside due to hiom getting caught up in al of his own interpersonal drama. He gets nothing but push-back and grief from his friends who can barely tolerate him. His family hates him and reveals he's homeless and squatting. Danny Mahoney is a FAILURE. He can shout out every party tip he has, but his control group is in the room with him pushing back and revealing a group of disfunctional, stupid idiots.

     

    But even though Danny has these hurdles, he did pull off his podcast's premise: he hosted a cocktail party with instructions for the listener. It included small talk, a couple party games, a cooking recipe, and there was even tips on how to deal with a party crasher.

     

    I am 100% in full support of valid criticism of anything under the sun. If the dynamic on the podcast was not to your liking, and you did find yourself confused, I cannot argue that you experienced these things. But if you didn't finish listening to the episode, I have no idea how you can say that the podcast's premise was 'never realized.' How would you even know?

     

    Apart from forgetting they were Irish instead of Italian---it had been a few days since I'd listened---I was bright enough to get what the jokes were supposed to be throughout the podcast. They just weren't funny. Don Dimello is a far more complex concept, and if I say Don's was my hands down favorite podcast of all time, you can give me a little credit for grasping the basics of humor. My confusion stemmed from the weak characterizations and plenty of crosstalk which failed to let the characters breathe or develop distinct personalities. I'm pretty sure Andy would admit Danny isn't one of his top five characters which is why he likely isn't brought out that often.

     

    I turned off the podcast because I found it grating as opposed to any of the other episodes, or more accurately, I sped through the rest to see if I was missing anything after listening to two-thirds of it.

     

    I'm glad you loved it, and I have no interest in convincing people to dislike something they enjoy. I still stand by my statement of it being the weakest entry so far but that's also in comparison to some of the best comedy podcasts ever recorded.

     

    If anything, I'm happy to hear there is one weak entry to remind us that Andy is human. Otherwise I'd be worried he's some sort of comedy Terminator come from the future to make us laugh ourselves to death.

  6. Posted

    I agreed with everything Spike said and I've heard it many times before. Who hasn't? His rant seemed hilariously unfocused to me so it came off, in a comedic way, like what he said could be boiled down to he'd rather the garbage still not be picked up. To me he stated some obvious social trends but I didn't hear any solutions. So should white people not walk their dogs? Who exactly is he mad at? The current mayor is pretty damn liberal. As a result of listening to his rant what would Spike like the listener to do? I think most white people who move to Brooklyn know that not as many white people used to live there and everything used to be shittier. So beyond being aware, what are they supposed to do? Not move there? And, we certainly weren't thinking of Oscar the Grouch as being a black man. His connection came from the garbage.

     

    The problem with Spike's gentrification rant is that he has no sense of history. In one of his recent movies, he lamented the gentrification of Red Hook with whites moving in and displacing blacks and their neighborhood culture. You know who lived in Red Hook in the 40s and 50s? Italians. Why did blacks move into Red Hook? Affordable rents and they were accused of disrupting the traditional Italian culture by the residents. Who lived there before the Italians? Well, it originally was a Dutch community and then crossed over to German and Irish and a number of other ethnicities who all went there looking for cheaper rents and disrupted the neighborhood culture. That story sound familiar? It's the story of just about every neighborhood of New York for over 400 years.

     

    It will continue to happen for the next 400 years if we aren't buried under the Atlantic Ocean from climate change.

  7. Posted

    I'm going to say this, and I hope you understand that what I mean by the worst so far, is that I laughed the least. IDK maybe the 2nd & 6th were tied, I laughed really hard at the "Can you do it while you're on fire" game(Chip was a great name), and really all the games, and I laughed each time he asked someone to take Satan as their savior. This one was hillarious too. But I think you're at a disadvantage being the episode after Don Dimello, which was one of the funniest.

    So far I would have to rank them like this:

     

    1. Eye on theatre (outrageous)

    2. Get fit Now (funniest total ensemble)

    3. Travel Bug (IDK maybe this one was better, the pope and Herzog really nailed it)

    4. The Wit and Wisdom of Dalton Wilcox (Fuck you vampires)

    5. Hail Satan & Shut up and have fun

     

    Anyone else agree?

     

    BTW if you listened to Andy on Greg Fitzimmons podcast last night, he said that due to popular demand each pilot may have to have a 2nd episode.

     

    Really I listen to hours of shit every day at this desk, and nothing has made me laugh more consistently than this show. Maybe its just me and my twisted mind and my UCB theatrephile nature.

     

     

    Thanks for making this argument. I don't think Andy simply wants uncritical praise from the boards and our appreciation of the genius he's churning out on a weekly basis is meaningless if it isn't tempered with acknowledgement of some of the lowlights. This was definitely the weakest of the podcasts to the point I shut it off about 2/3 of the way through.

     

    First, I think any character following Don DeMillo was going to suffer in comparison. On Theater is the only podcast I've ever kept on my phone after listening because I know I'll need to hear it about three of our more times to drain every bit of pleasure. Apart from maybe the first Ricky Gervais podcasts, I don't think I've ever kept a podcast or listened to one twice. I felt as if Andy gave me a free movie or cd that I can't simply discard.

     

    Second, there was a failure to differentiate the characters in the first segment where I had trouble following who was speaking and when---not a problem in any of the other episodes due to Andy and his cohort's brilliance---but this was just a rowdy group of Italian stereotypes and the promise and premise of a "party" tape was never realized unlike the far superior exercise podcast.

     

    Third, when the "celebrity" showed up, it was a Paula Deen parody that was about a year behind the actual events dulling any of the comic potential. We've already seen her put on public trial and banished, so the Southern stereotypes wore thin. I didn't find the "n- toes" bit offensive, just tired and there only for shock value and meant to hit a well-worn target.

     

    Yes, yes, I know it's free and we should bow and scrape giving our thanks and undying gratitude...so on and so on... Still, I think it's fair to give some feedback on the episodes, and I do love and respect Andy so much for providing such an incredible "experiment" that I think is one of the greatest accomplishments of the format. Daly and Tompkins are the reigning comedy champions of the podcast universe.

    • Like 1

  8. Posted

    I want to complain about how funny this podcast was. I slipped my headphones on and rode the train to class but was constantly annoyed by how loud I was laughing and feeling something my doctor calls "pleasure."

     

    I'd like to request you turn everything down from eleven to five for future episodes so I don't experience so many feelings, facial contortions, and oral outbursts on my regular commute. More specifically, tell Andy Daly not to be so talented; it's really annoying to those of us who aren't. Also, who the hell does this Paul F. Tompkins think he is coming on to so many podcasts and making them immeasurably better?

     

    Betsy Sodaro's "Fly Girl" Cowgirl was funny on too many levels made better by her voice, so can she please be funnier on fewer levels and in a dull monotone?

     

    Sean Conroy can pretty much take the same notes as Sodaro. I don't like that he's funny and a talented poet. Stick to one or the other but tone it down on either.

     

    And the band was too funny both as comedians and musicians. Tell them to tone that down on future episodes.

  10. Posted

    Matt, loved the episode and the podcast as always, and since it was a "bonus cut," I could care less if you go off the rails. I'd love to see more bonus cuts where you freestyle on any pop culture conversation because your venting is interesting.

     

    Few other things---

     

    I'm listening along on the Q train hearing Jason Isbell's name over and over again not having any clue who he was, and then I am listening to Spotify the next day, and he was in my "reading playlist" which is a compilation of all the new albums that come out to get me to listen to new music. I can not recommend Spotify to you enough since I think I'm close to you in age---42---and I had fallen off buying albums until I joined their premium service ($10/month, a pittance) and created several different playlists based off every album that comes out that even remotely sounds interesting.

     

    Spotify, like buying an iPod 10 years ago, has made me fall in love with music again since I have access to millions of songs. Christ, this seems like an ad? :)

     

    Jason Isbell happened to be on NPR's 2013 Best Albums list, which I'd suggest over the drivel of Rolling Stone and other music sources. THIS LIST: http://www.npr.org/blogs/bestmusic2013/2013/12/10/249243871/npr-musics-50-favorite-albums-of-2013

     

    You put that together with Spotify which has almost every album on the list, and you will have an amazing listening experience.

     

    JUST LOVE THE PODCAST---Please don't ever stop!

     

    Brian J. Bouton

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