David Cross - It's Not Funny

If you don't know who David Cross is, and you enjoy comedy, you should do yourself a favor and go rent/buy/steal the DVD's of the short-lived HBO comedy skit series Mr. Show. Also, go download episodes of "Arrested Development" or the sparse episodes of "News Radio" (or God forbid, "Just Shoot Me") that featured the man. Then you'll get a feeling for the kind of comedy he can pull off. But his standup certainly isn't the same as his sometimes off the wall, occasionally goofy, acting gigs. His standup is a slew of observational rants about whatever it is he sees fit to trounce on. He runs the gamut of topics from his friends boring babies, electric scissors, gold plated desserts, to 'Bullet-y' the Friendly Fire bullet. Cross's funniest moments come when he is obviously exasperated about a particular subject and just can not fathom how anyone doesn't see his side of things. His intense sarcasm is often aggressive when talking about how "great" it is that our administration is spending so much money on the war and on traveling to the Moon (".. I didn't know there was oil up there, apparently there is"), or how country stars are profiting from the tragedy of September 11th, yet not actually offering themselves to be in the service. If you heard his previous Sub-Pop release, Shut Up, You Fucking Baby, you can expect more of the same on this release. The first half of the disc revolves more around observational absurdities, and the second half delves more into the asinine political activies of our current administration. My writeup certainly could never do justice to someone I feel is one of the funniest men of our time, nor could I properly proclaim just how accurate his observations are. Hopefully someone else is listening. One note, if you consider yourself a conservative, or a Republican, or just really religious, you might want to think about skipping this one. For the rest of us, enjoy another 74 minutes of goodness. [www.bobanddavid.com]