Out of Bounds Comedy Festival

Out of Bounds Comedy Festival

The Luv Doc Recommends

August 31, 2011

How much comedy can anyone truly take? That’s a very serious question, isn’t it? The mere prospect of six or so hours of gut-splitting hilarity should give anyone pause – well, at least anyone not swaddled in extra-absorbent Depends and clutching an empty paper sack. Just because you’ve never laughed until you peed doesn’t necessarily mean you have exceptional bladder control. It might just mean you have no sense of humor – or at the very least that your mother/father/brother/sister/cousin/girlfriend/boyfriend/priest never successfully located and exploited your tickle gland. If so, let your incontinence be a badge of honor. Better to be scarred by the embarrassing memory of soaking your birthday dress doubled over in paroxysms of mirth while being entertained by the comedy stylings of Chuckles the Party Clown than to be a dry-pantied old sourpuss with a superiority complex. Better to lose your dignity than your sense of humor. Besides, dignity is the consolation prize you earn after years and years of maddening incredulity, humiliation, and abuse – when your ego has been polished smooth like a river stone. A sense of humor, on the other hand, is a precious gift – a survival instinct that keeps you from being crushed by the gravity, cruelty, and absurdity of life. Yes, it’s important to be able to laugh at yourself … even and especially if you’re not all that funny … but it’s also important to be able to laugh at others. Laughter is one of the most important ways we share commonality. It’s also one of the ways we enforce uniformity … generally through ridicule. Were ridicule not effective, you would probably still be wearing shirts with tattoo designs printed on them … or bright-orange Crocs … or pleated jeans … or that spectacularly luxurious Kentucky Waterfall mullet you sported back in the early Nineties (yeah, you couldn’t let go, could you?). If your friends had been blessed with the miracle of Facebook back in those days, they would have just posted a few pages of witheringly mean comments under your profile photo instead of mercilessly teasing you to your face until you finally shaved your head smooth like Chad Taylor from Live … or Telly Savalas … or Howie Mandel … or Michael Chiklis. Whatever, the important thing is that their merciless ridicule and laughter motivated you to switch from a silly, white-trash hairstyle to no hairstyle at all. Put that one in the win column for the hyenas. Hilarity, like misery, loves company. Humor not only motivates personal change, it can effect societal change as well. Who can forget the wicked satire of Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” Alexander Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock,” or George Bush’s famous “Mission Accomplished” speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln in 2003? There probably wasn’t a dry pant leg on that entire flight deck. Of course, let’s not be too generous in extolling the virtues of humor. Laughter may sometimes be the best medicine, but sometimes it can make you sick (Carrot Top), crazy (Gallagher), or give you a headache (Roseanne Barr). The sad truth is that not all comedy is gold. If you sit through enough of it, you’ll find more slag than precious metal, but sometimes the treasure is worth the effort. This weekend the Out of Bounds Comedy Festival (or OOB … rhymes with “boob” … what are the chances?) is celebrating its 10th year of bringing sketch, improv, and stand-up comedy from across America to the “live music capital of the world.” Great idea! Austin could stand a different kind of wanking – at least for a weekend, right? Through Monday you can check out some of the best up-and-coming comics in America at the Hideout Theatre, the State Theatre, ColdTowne Theater, and the Velveeta Room. If you’re not terribly adventurous, Labor Day night at the State you can catch Saturday Night Live star Tim Meadows’ comedy trio Uncle’s Brother. That should be worth a pair of Depends at least.

‘Hammy and the Kids’

The Luv Doc Recommends

September 1, 2010

La Zona Rosa CLOSED

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Just think: If you were in Canada right now, you would be chill. Give it some thought. Canada is only one border crossing away, and, unlike Americans, Canadians are much more respectful to their southern neighbors. In fact, in a lot of places along the U.S.-Canadian border, there’s not much of a border at all – maybe a ditch, a swath of clear-cut forest, or, like in Derby Line, Vt., a simple line painted across the street. How awesome would it be to do the Hokey-Pokey in two countries at the same time? Really … not much more awesome than actually doing the Hokey-Pokey. Regardless, no need to pay a coyote for a run across that border. In fact, the biggest threats in crossing the Canadian border are gray wolves and grizzlies. They’re particularly fond of people who smell like bacon – Canadian or otherwise – so if you decide to scarf down a few Egg McMuffins before your hike into the promised land, you might want to consider packing a loaded .45 and a couple of spare clips. Back before 9/11, crossing into Canada was even easier. You didn’t have to declare anything except maybe your intent to get pissed on Molson’s and bang anything that didn’t look like a moose or a Mountie. In those days, Canadians were willing to tolerate unconscionable levels of obnoxiousness. Not only that, they let almost anybody into their country: draft dodgers, the Grateful Dead, boat people, the French. The result is one huge frozen cultural clusterfuck that has contributed more to American society than the entire state of Wyoming – and that includes Jackson Pollock and Dick Cheney (who, by the way, are no strangers to clusterfucks themselves). Strangely, as diverse a place as Canada is, Canadians are largely a peace-loving people – unless you happen to be a moose with a huge rack or the opposing hockey team. Canadians also have a likable humility and a great sense of humor – traits conditioned by years of being America’s ruthlessly hazed sidekick. Think of it this way: Canada is the Paul Shaffer to America’s Letterman. Would it surprise you to know that Paul Shaffer is Canadian? Of course not. He’s incredibly talented, has a great sense of humor, is amazingly humble, and is loved by everyone. Letterman, on the other hand, was apparently loving anything that wasn’t a moose or a Mountie. When it comes to tapping the office talent, nice guys always finish last, eh? Or at least a close second. Canadians (other than Tommy Lee trainee Pamela Anderson) really don’t put off the sexual freak vibe anyway. Maybe it’s their layered clothing, their chirpy disposition, or their inability to put on a game face for anything other than a hockey brawl. In truth, Canadians may actually be freaks, but they keep in on the DL … at least until their boyfriends videotape it and post it on the Internet. There are some, however, who couldn’t keep it on the DL even if they tried: Howie Mandel, Jim Carrey, Kiefer Sutherland, and, of course, Kids in the Hall‘s least popular member and most successful freak Kevin McDonald, who will be in town this weekend for the Out of Bounds Comedy Festival. Sunday evening at La Zona Rosa, McDonald will be performing Hammy and the Kids, billed as “A one-man exploration of working with the Kids in the Hall and coping with an alcoholic father.” Joining McDonald on musical numbers will be Canadian guitarist/alt-folker Alun Piggins, who would be playing Paul Shaffer to McDonald’s Letterman if McDonald weren’t Canadian.

Out of Bounds Comedy Festival Headliners

The Luv Doc Recommends

September 2, 2009

Sweet. Three-day weekend! Of course, that’s assuming you have a regular job with a set schedule, benefits, and all that. Otherwise, a three-day weekend just means you’re pulling extra shifts to accommodate all those state and corporate drones looking to get their swerve and grub on. You wouldn’t mind it much if they were big tippers who could hold their liquor, but the ugly truth is that your pockets will be sagging with chump change and you’ll be spending a lot of quality time mopping mangorita barf out of bathroom stalls. Happy Labor Day! Bet you’re rethinking that fine arts degree now, eh? All you wanted to do was dance, right? Well, how ’bout you dance your ass down to table 7 and Hoover up that high-chair debris field that Junior laid down while his parents superhumanly ignored his cracker crumb and macaroni temper tantrum? They probably think they can buy you off with a 15% tip and a huge smiley face on your comment card, but for this travesty you’re going to need some serious payback. Sadly, you’ll just have to estimate. You can’t know the real damage until they lift that chubby little fucker out of his high chair and shake him like a can of Parmesan cheese. It’s truly amazing the amount of culinary detritus that can get trapped in a pair of OshKosh B’Gosh overalls: a whole sleeve of saltines, a half basket of tortilla chips – soggy on one end, of course – some Jell-O kernels, and a few hundred Cheerios (brought in by the parents to keep him occupied). Even to the most compassionate of food-service employees, that’s worth at least a couple of lung nuggets and a butt-crack silverware swab, but by the time you’ve properly assessed the damage, they’re already buckling him into the backseat of the Prius. Breath deeply. Hold it in. Visualize the huge bowl of pee soup you’ll be serving them the next time they decide to save money on a babysitter. Your boss and your unemployed dope-dealing roommate like to tell you there’s no room for bitterness or resentment in the workplace. They’re right. There is no room … unless you make room. If America has learned anything from its disgruntled postal workers, it’s that people can endure almost any amount of monotony, abuse, and humiliation in their jobs as long as they can nurture a psychotic revenge fantasy … hopefully one they won’t actually act out … at least not in real life. Besides, that’s what improv classes are for, right? Where else can you mow down an entire office full of co-workers with an AK-47 and get away with it? Maybe even score a few nervous chuckles in the process? You may not think it’s funny, but comedy is an important part of sanity maintenance. Somehow you have to soak up all the injustice, pain, and misery in the world and still manage to turn that frown upside down. It’s not easy. Sometimes you need an assist. This weekend Austin provides one in the form of the Out Of Bounds Comedy Festival, a seven-day “live performance festival that showcases some of the best improv, sketch, stand-up, and filmed comedy from all over the country.” Sunday night, the Independent features Austin’s Get Up and Melbourne, Australia’s Impro Melbourne at 7:30pm, then Chicago’s SCRAM and Los Angeles’ Cackowski and Talarico at 9pm. You might as well make a whole night of it. You probably don’t have to work the next day. If you do, you could probably use some comic relief.