Fear Factor!

I have a soft spot for stand-up comedy. Sorry, let me rephrase that. I have a soft spot for “stupid” stand-up comedy.

I’m not talking about Gallagher, Carrot Top, or the Amazing Johnathan, mind you. Or even just horrible stand-up comics that bomb unwittingly or even on purpose. I’m talking about the comics who deliberately take a stance to embrace stupidity and, in turn, end up looking much, much smarter than the audience. (I’m pretty sure this makes me a jerk, by the way.)

Joe briefly mentioned Joe Rogan’s new album hit the site this past week and I find him to be a great example of this type. On Shiny Happy Jihad, Rogan makes it plain that he’s not the smartest guy in the world. The constant reefer jokes (“Certain jokes in this set would not have been possible without the help of weed.”) and self-deprecation (“Dumb People Out-Breeding Smart People” is primarily about himself) make sure of that. But when Rogan thinks for a bit, he actually comes up with some pretty spot-on insights about the war on terror (“Osama Bin Laden is right out of a comic book”) or when, in a lovely bit of meta-humor, he adopts his girlfriend’s voice (“whenever there’s a serious issue, you have to make fun of it and then go up on stage and tell strangers our arguments verbatim so that you think you’re OK?!”).

There are, admittedly, some slow bits but you’ll be sorry if you miss out on Rogan’s animated description of what he really thought about his time on Fear Factor. Hint: I doubt he’s going to be on NBC again anytime soon.