> Thanks, I'm sorrowfully quite familiar with the art of "Mr. Mike," having
> viewed his sadistic witlessness on a regular basis on SNL. Getting
> dragged through the swamp of MO'D's mind all over again at book-length is
> something I'd prefer to avoid. "Let the dead bury the dead" is my motto.
Well, by the time MO'D got to SNL, his material began to lose some heat, corrupted by the bright lights and fast money. His best stuff was in Evergreen Review and the Lampoon, which was hardly witless; indeed, it blew the Harvard boys out of the water. And they knew it.
My book is very critical of MO'D's work, esp the later stuff, as well as his personal behavior, some of which was most destructive. His is a sad story, that is, if one has any empathetic feelings toward someone of genuine talent.
> Speaking of performers I denounce unseen, here's another rabble-rouser
> you'd probably consider a comic genius:
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Dice_Clay>
Ah, no -- the Diceman was a one-note hack, his sexist hipster persona partly borrowed from Jerry Lewis's Buddy Love. Alas, Dice wasn't as good as Lewis in that role (which was a parody of sorts of Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra), and thus was reduced to shit material, playing to racist nativism for the mere sake of it, and telling dirty nursery rhymes. Not even on the radar, Dice.
But tell us, Carl -- what American (or whatever) humorist or comedian do you find funny? That makes you laugh, I mean. And no high-falutin' Thurber/Perelman references, please. A figure(s) from the popular culture.
Dennis