:: Buy Now: $13.98
:: Track list & details
Okay, I will be the first to admit that I've been writing a growing number of lukewarm and even outright hostile reviews for this outlet in recent weeks. And I'll be honest, sometimes personal issues that have nothing to do with the subject matter can—goddammit, what did that dog chew up now? I swear, she's part goat or something!—anyway, what was I—oh, um, you know what, let me start over.
Let's get right to it: you come from New York and you allow yourself to be called a "comic genius" on the back cover of your second CD/DVD release, and you talk in interviews about being "real," and you drop early Woody Allen, Steve Martin and Lenny Bruce as influences, and you reveal that you majored in comedy at some place called Hampshire College, then you had better bring the goods, my Russian Jewish friend (and I can say that because I'm part Lithuanian Jew). Are these the goods? Are these really The Goods?
No wait, back up a sec. If I had to define what it is that makes a comedian funny, it isn't material. It's personality. Weird, offbeat, loud, shy, perverse, phlegmatic. Whatever it is, a truly good comic is one-of-a-kind. David Cross, who is a vocal fan of young Eugene Mirman, has such a personality. So does Rita Rudner, Fred Armisen, Sarah Silverman, Red Buttons, Eddie Izzard, even Gallagher. Eugene Mirman himself, sorry to say, does not. He isn't even excruciatingly average, or dull, or withdrawn. He's just... a guy. No strong accent, no overarching attitude, no remarkable features.
Don't get me wrong, Gene—can I call him Gene? (c'mon, Gene, let's be friends, I'm trying to help, really) brings some laughs here—between tracks 5 and 9 there are a decent number, quite randomly organized (though the best are rather obvious digs at Republicans and Evangelists). And the DVD, which is mostly a collection of uncharmingly amateurish handheld video goofs, has funny bits...before it starts getting really stupid. But overall, Mirman hits about 40% of the time. In baseball, that's legendary. In comedy, not so much.
Anyway, now that all of you have gotten the gist and stopped reading, I just want to use this last graph to rant a little bit on something that hopefully stood out above. Yes, I'm talking about Mirman's majoring in Comedy at Massachussetts' Hampshire College. That's right, he has a B.A. in Comedy (I assume—wouldn't it be humiliating if he failed out?), a major he was able to design himself. Who the hell majors in comedy? Did he seriously get his parents to pay for that? Or, because they happen to be Russian immigrants, I wonder if Mirman simply convinced them his major was in, say, diamonds, or caviar. Two things Russians respect. You wanna "major" in comedy? Go work in a dead-end job like other budding comedians! Find yourself a bunch of crazy friends! Suffer through torturous relationships with the opposite sex! Comedy college? Feh. F. E. H. Feh. I'm done.
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