In the meantime, I am going to do something I haven't done before, which is simply post a youtube clip of a young comedian who I really enjoyed. His name is Joe Wong and this is a set he did on LEtterman.Why am I showing you this? Is this guy the best comedian in the country? No. but this set is very special.I remember when being on Letterman was THE thing all comedians wanted. It was the arrival. Beyond the prestige, there was somethign about a great shot on Letterman. Doing a great five minute standup set on a talk show used to be an art unto itself. Guys like Steven Wright turned that into a career. A perfect distilled version of the comic. An excellently timed and organized set. A quick arc of development and peak within a few short minutes. At it's best, it's like an olympic dive.Years ago, Chris Rock and I were writing a shitty movie together. We were talking about comedians. We went to Mitch Hedberg's site (this is before he died) and watched one of his Letterman sets. At the time, Chris and I were (and are) both wind-bag, stage-stalking, hammer a premise to the ground comics. We watched Mitch, who just fired beautiful fastballs one after the other. Joke joke joke. All solid. All amazing. Non-stop. Five minutes of it. We were in awe of it. Much respect to Mitch Hedberg. Anyway, he was one of the last guys who really made an art of the five minute set.I did Letterman about five times in my life. I used to obsess about those little sets. I had a few good ones. No tens, I suppose. I think I did better later on the Tonight Show. I was funnier by then. I haven't been on Letterman in about ten years (dunno why).In any case, I somehow stumbled recently on this set by Joe. I watched it because I saw that he hales from the Comedy Studio in Cambridge Mass. This is a tiny room, about ninety seats, above a pink Chinese restaurant. The entire comedy scene that I came from in Boston now only exists in that tiny room. There are still some very odd people doing comedy in there, thank god.I never saw this guy before. Watch this set. He really nails it. Some of the jokes are really good. Some of them are a bit pedestrian. But he really nails the set. He had to be in a crazily agitated state. He is WAY out of his league here but he held his own through some sweet strength of will. Really great, great job.Watch the set build. He destroys. My favorite part is at about 4:45. He says "Do you even know who is Benjamin Franklin?" the crowd explodes. He seems, for the first time, to come out of the set and realize how hard he's killing and he grins with real happiness. The crowd seems to realize this and swells into applause. I really really envy Joe for this moment. I remember my very first Letterman set (April 19th 1995, the same day Tim Mcveigh bombed the Fed building in Oklahoma) It was over very very quickly and the first thought I had when it was over was "Shit. I forgot to enjoy that." I haven't made that mistake since and I always make a point of taking a mental snapshot of the big moments but there's nothing like your first time.Anyway, congratulations, Joe. Nice job. Your challenge now is to make that act work for more than five minutes. That will come with decades of work, if you're up to it.Also, very big kudos and admiration to Dave Letterman and my good friend Eddie Brill, who books the comics on the show. This was a great and not obvious pick. Good on you for giving this dude a shot.*One note about Joe and his language and accent. Joe's dialect of Chinese, which I don't know the name of but recognize from Chinese films that I have seen, is so completely against the grain of English. Like the way the chinese have their own musical scale, the timing and dramatic ups and downs and off-rythm stops and starts of Chinese, is really interesting to listen to when it is fighting against the current of speaking English. FOr some reason I love listening to this coming from Joe. It's musical. And the fact that he manages to harness this and turn it into dead-on comic timing that is very unique, is goddamn impressive.
His timing is gay.
I like it when one can say something as simple as, "I'm Irish," and it gets a laugh. Minimalist comedy. I like Joe.
I don't see the Mitch Hedberg comparison other than the timing.
Quote from: moonshake on May 03, 2009, 11:47:47 AMHis timing is gay.Is it possible to have heterosexual timing?
