Comic Genius: Sex and Pot Jokes

Posted by Eugene Mirman at 6:16 PM, January 23, 2006

For the last few days (and the next few weeks) I have been on the Unlimited Sunshine Tour, headlined by Cake and featuring the bands Tegan and Sara, and Gogol Bordello. I'm not sure how much time you've spent on the road, but she is a sneaky lady (but good sneaky—like when she does something in a relationship that makes the man realize he wants to get married.)

The first date of the tour was in Worcester, MA. Worcester is a sad place probably. I only know it from driving through it, never stopping to enjoy the now empty factories and weeping metal-heads (who are still mad at Grunge for ushering in women's lib.) Later I found out that Worcester's slogan (one that the town elders probably dislike) is "the armpit of the world." I do not believe it is called that because it connects the world's upper torso (Boston) to the world's arm (Belchertown.) I believe it's more of a metaphor.

I've now done four shows, and Worcester was by far the WORSEster (I think that is a joke, but I may be wrong, sorry.) People were unruly, and if I wasn't a sensitive, politically correct man, I would even call them Retarded. In fact, being from Massachusetts myself, I would even say they were Wicked Retarded. But I won't. I'll just write it and hide behind a Veil of Irony (which is how so many people can secretly remain racist—on a side note—watch out Schopenhauer, because my "Veil of Irony" may just replace your "Veil of Maya" as the most talked about "Veil"-based concept.) Bam! I just changed our culture! Bam! I just re-appropriated Emeril's signature phrase (much like gays took the word "queer" back, and African-Americans took the word "Vaganitor" for themselves in the mid-'80s—pretty selfish, if you ask me, African-Americans.)

That was quite a long aside. Back to bad show story. Actually, it's pretty much done. People yelled, it was hard to talk, someone threw a pineapple top at John, the lead singer of Cake's head. I'm sure many of the people were wonderful, but some jerk-holes ruined it for everyone.

The rest of the shows were great (aside from my second set in New York, where some people booed during a video I played.) Normally, people don't yell at videos, because videos can't hear people (science has been pretty bullshit about fixing that.) I'm not sure if it was the content (my Sexpert video) or people were antsy for the next band (Tegan and Sara). Either way, it has been remedied. I now go on earlier, in the middle of the set change between Gogol Bordello and Tegan and Sara, and instead of a video with sex jokes, I play a video with pot/ sex jokes. That seems to work out much better. And here is that video. It is a half-parody/half-weird take on those menacing pot ads that make children believe that if they smoke pot they will 1) either die 2) drown a baby or 3) cause people at a party to sexually assault them.

Also, while home for the New York show, I got a call from Banana Republic, a clothing store, with which I have a credit card, asking for money, because I was late paying my bill. I paid them. But I also recorded the call for you. Here it is as well.