David Cross - It's Not Funny: Album Review

David Cross, It's Not Funny (Sub Pop, 2004)
I was disappointed to read a few reviews of this newest David Cross comedy album and see people bitching about everything from him still talking about 9/11 to it being too much like Shut Up You Fucking Baby. Man, people will find a reason to complain about anything. I know it's the in thing now to not like David Cross (since he's officially the 18th most annoying New Yorker of all time or some shit), but people need to get off it. This CD, if it doesn't improve on his first album, keeps things right at that same level, which is still way above most other comedians.

CERTAIN LEADERS IN GOVERNMENT LOOK OR ACT LIKE CERTAIN POP CULTURE REFERENCES!

Great way to kick off the show: "So look, I don't hate children. I don't know how that rumor started." I've heard this bit before about people with their asinine stories about their dumbass kids, but of course it's always relevant. My homeboy EZ's wife has been pregnant now since about my first senior year in college, which means pretty shortly, he'll be the first person my age who has a kid who wasn't, you know. That shit he was saying about trying to talk your gf into her third consecutive abortion is true. Not that I've tried it or anything, but obviously it's going to be harder than having kids, or maybe more people would be doing it.

WOMEN, PLEASE RINSE OFF YOUR VAGINA AND ANUS!

I've never seen or heard of these electric scissors before, but they sound dangerous. The shit about Evanescence is hilarious. One of my favourite quotes from the whole CD is "I'd rather have to listen to the death rattle of my only child than to have to listen to that shit."

I'VE TAKEN A POPULAR CONTEMPORARY POP SONG AND CHANGED THE LYRICS TO COMMENT ON THE PROLIFERATION OF STARBUCKS IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD!

He calls the chicks from The Simple Life "two rich, giggly cunts." Also: "I don't think Osama bin Laden sent those planes to attack us because he hated our freedom. I think he did it because of our support for Israel, our ties with the Saudi family and our military bases in Saudi Arabia. You know why I think that? Because that's what he fucking said! Are we a nation of 6-year-olds?"

A RAPID SERIES OF COMICAL NOISES!

He brings up a point that I'm pretty sure I've brought up elsewhere on this site, which is that the legal age of consent should be lowered to 15. Not that I'm necessarily into that sort of thing. The shit about gay guys fucking other guys that look just like themselves was only kinda funny. Maybe it would've been better if you could see whatever it was he was acting out (no homo).

ALTHOUGH INDIGENT, RURAL FAMILIES HAVE LITTLE TO SAY IN THE MATTER, THIRD RATE PUBLIC EDUCATION HAS KEPT THEM IGNORANT AND THUS, GREAT SOURCES OF RIDICULE!

This is one of the main things I see so many critics bitching about. The joke: "Do you think on September 11, that the people who worked at the New York, New York Casino felt it a little deeper? I bet some did." First of all, that joke is fucking hilarious. It's not even so much about September 11, but about these people, especially fat woman secretaries, who try to front like any and every tragedy somehow means more to them than it did to everybody else. The shit about the New York, New York casino is just introducing an entirely separate joke.

MY CHILD IS ENTHRALLING, ESPECIALLY WHEN IT SAYS SOMETHING UNEXPECTEDLY PRECOCIOUS EVEN THOUGH IT DOESN'T UNDERSTAND WHAT IT JUST SAID!

The duct tape shit he could've kept though. I've never heard it before, but it sounds like something he might've been using for a minute at this point and finally decided to put down on disc. It's not up there with the Assaulted Nuts or gay Gabriel with the gas mask on his roller blades. I don't even necessarily reject to people still using 9/11 humor (it hasn't even been one election cycle since the attacks) as long as they're coming up with something new to say about it. Like the shit about the President eating a Jew baby.

MY IMMIGRANT MOM TALKS FUNNY!

"Even though I'm against the war, I do support our white troops. No, I'm kidding. I'm not a Republican!" This is the truest, funniest shit I've ever heard before about Republicans. If it weren't for the vulgarity and the general tone of it, it could pretty much be taught in high school civics classes. He also goes on about racists (Trent Lott going on BET: "When I said all faggots were niggers, I really meant all niggers are faggots") and homophobes ("Little Sally, what was it like when your uncle held you down and molested you? It was gross, it was like two men making out."). The shit about it being legal in Texas to fuck dogs (but not other men) is especially hilarious.

WHEN IT COMES TO JEWS, BEHAVIOR ONE MIGHT PERCEIVE AS OBNOXIOUS AND ANNOYING I PRESENT AS QUIRKY BUT IT'S OKAY TO JOKE ABOUT IT BECAUSE I, MYSELF, AM JEWISH!

This shit about him eating dinner in a $500 a meal resturant is like a throwback to his old school bit about the old lady who dies and leaves her fortune to her cat, rather than, you know, the homeless or something. He recounts the journey of a piece of gold from the miner who got paid $2 a week to blast it out of a mountainside in Uzbekistan all the way to this resturant where they apparently serve it as dessert (?).

PANDERING TO THE LOCALS!

"I was watching that show where there's the guy on stage and everybody in the audience believes he has contact with the dead and spirits talk to him."

*Somebody in the audience throws out the random name of a show*

"No, no, no. It was church."

His shit about religion is, as far as I'm concerned, always spot on and, of course, timely. Also, there's a jab at Dennis Miller (the President's new court jester) in there that's pretty fucking nasty.

EVEN THOUGH I AM IN THE CLOSET, THAT WON'T PREVENT ME FROM GETTING CHEAP LAUGHS AT THE EXPENSE OF HOMOSEXUALS!

This shit (about colonizing the moon and leaving "the meek to inherit the earth") is more true than it is funny.

WEATHERMEN HAVE BECOME, FOR THE MOST PART, OBSOLETE!

The best part about the war: 10,000 less Iraqis! Can't wait for the next one: Operation: Rest of the Brown Ones. LOL at Lee Greenwood's ridonkulous "Proud to Be an American" (9/11 Remix).

WHEN ALL IS SAID AND DONE, I AM LONELY AND MISERABLE AND BARELY ABLE TO MASK MY CONTEMPT FOR THE AUDIENCE AS I TROT OUT THE SAME SORRY ACT I'VE BEEN DOING SINCE THE MID-EIGHTIES!

Also LOL at President Bush laying a wreath at some prison camp in Germany while simultaneously wondering how many millions of dollars his grandpa made from the Nazis. That fucker. The new version of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speach, with little addendums for the President to read (in hushed tones, of course) is actually pretty creative and funny. There's also a bonus track that's amusing about the time he met Scott Stapp from Creed at a poker convention in Las Vegas.

I hadn't planned on writing so much about this album, so I'll keep it short. Like I said before, people will find a reason to bitch about anything and everything. Yeah, this album is similar to Shut Up You Fucking Baby. Similar in that they're both FUCKING AWESOME. I don't know anybody else out there right now who's doing comedy this edgy and this (granted, occasionally) funny.