If I had a baby, I'd trust Jesse Thorn to hold it. He's the host of the Sound of Young America, and not only does he have a wonderful, soothing voice, but he just seems like such a gosh-darn nice guy.

Even though I trust Mr. Thorn well enough to let him hold my non-existent child, it still took me a long time to listen to a podcast that he highly recommends (and distributes), Coyle and Sharpe: The Imposters. As Jesse puts it:

In the early 1960s, James P. Coyle and Mal Sharpe roamed the streets of San Francisco, microphone in hand, roping strangers into bizarre schemes and surreal stunts.

Earlier this week I listened to the most recent episode, "French Festival." It's amazing. I don't want to give anything away, because part of the joy for me was listening to the bit unfold into greater and greater levels of ridiculousness. So I'll just tell you: go listen.

A lot of people have been yapping about the Tom Cruise Scientology video lately. Eh. I watched about 30 seconds of it, and it was exactly what I thought it would be: Tom Cruise spouting a bunch of stuff while looking eerily reminiscent of his character in Magnolia, Frank T.J. Mackey.

What I find much more interesting is the following video of one Mr. Jerry O'Connell. Now, after five years of "Sliders," we all know that Jerry O'Connell is The Man. But somehow, in this video, he manages to be even more The Man by simultaneously making fun of the Tom Cruise video and supporting the WGA. Now, if you haven't seen or read anything about the Tom Cruise video before watching this, but just keep in mind that pretty much everything Jerry is saying is based on something Tom actually said.

I'm thrilled to announce that my first post for 23/6, the Huffington Post's version of The Onion, went up today. And! Not only was my piece featured on 23/6, but it also held some valuable real estate on the Huffington Post's front page as well. This was absolutely thrilling, but also a little amusing since some people, presumably those linked off the Post's front page, apparently didn't realize that the piece was written for a humor website. Thus I have received a couple comments correcting the facts of my story highlighting the similarities between the New Hampshire vote recount and the breakdown of Britney Spears. Awesome.

It's often easier to talk about what's wrong with comedy in Philly than what's right. Shows and performers don't get enough media coverage, people talk shit about local comedy without actually seeing any of it, and our only longform improv school doesn't even have a dedicated space yet. Folks will come out in droves for Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter (with good reason), but crowds don't seem to understand that they can also see good, non-famous comedians in town regularly.

Last week, however, I got a nice reminder of everything that's right with comedy in this city. Rob and I performed at Bedtime Stories, Gregg Gethard's monthly comedy variety show, and it was just so great. The audience was packed, people laughed, and Rob and I got to hang out and have a good time with other Philly comedy folks. It made me think of some other very good things about comedy in Philly, such as:

1. There may not be a lot of comedians here, but a lot of the ones who are here are pretty effing talented.
2. People aren't pigeonholed. There are great connections between people who do sketch, improv, and stand-up.
3. Even without a dedicated space, the Philly Improv Theater is doing some fantastic things (like running classes, getting Keith Johnstone to come to town, and renting out the Shubin for comedy shows one week every month).
4. Comic vs. Audience and Die Actor Die are filling in the comedy-reporting gap that other local blogs are leaving wide open.

These are all great things. And speaking of Die Actor Die, the next show is on the 21st. Go to it.

This has been all over Comedy Central Insider and Best Week Ever, but it's just too good to not repost:

A few days ago my boss gave all of us employees free movies she got from the post office. The series is entitled "Delivering Justice," and the films are all about different types of fraud. Mine is "Identity Crisis: A High Noon Bullet." This does not make any sense, but it does make more sense than the one that is subtitled "A Cowboys Bullet" without any possessive apostrophe.

Each DVD came with an informational English/Spanish poster. Here's a picture of mine, along with the DVD cover:

The film is pretty hilarious. Clocking in at a feature-length 11-½ minutes, it tells the story of a well-to-do couple who suddenly can't finance their new home because they have maxed out credit cards…in Maryland. Wait, how could this be? They don't live in Maryland! No, they don't…but there's a computer-savvy sleaze-bag who does. How do we know he's computer savvy? Well, at one point his friend has to ask him to explain something again, "in English." Oh, and there's also the line when the theif just says, "I love computers!"

Now, the culprit may seem clever. He may even manage to convince the technologically impaired watching the film that any young person who has a computer is dangerous. But the culprit is no match for…the postal inspectors. With the help of the culprit's vaguely southern-sounding girlfriend, the postal inspectors stage an elaborate sting, complete with rifles. That's right, rifles. When the postal inspectors are done with this guy, all that's left are his aviator sunglasses, lying on the pavement. Bam!

I imagine these movies being shown at under-funded nursing homes that don't have the money for cable. Before the orderly starts the DVDs, he yells, "All right, listen up everyone! I'm going to show you some movies about how to not get your shit stolen. You remember Grace White, you used to be in 24-A? She got her credit card number stolen by a guy on the phone, and we had to kick her out. So if a guy calls on the phone and says he's your son, don’t listen to him. He's lying. All right? Protect yourselves."

"LOL08" is my friend's motto for 2008, and I like it a lot.

One of the things I did last night to celebrate LOL08 was finally see local hip-hop powerpoint duo Rowan and Hastings. They rap (and occasionally do yoga) in front of video/powerpoint presentations. The video below doesn't give you the full experience of seeing them live (which you should do, if you get a chance), but it's still pretty excellent: