The Man of the Hour

This blog started partly because of Gilbert Gottfried. I have been a fan of his since hearing him on the Howard Stern show back in the late 90's. He disappeared from real comedy for a few years while picking up voice work with Disney and Aflac. He returned in scorching form in The Aristocrats, a documentary about an improv joke that comedians have been riffing on for decades as a sort of secret handshake in the business. Pretty much everyone in said movie sucked except for him and Carlin. He followed this up with the amazing Dirty Jokes cd. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i5KbqGHoJ4  I went right out and bought it! Punchlines include dead hookers full of semen, homosexual men in a hot tub full of semen, and Bill Cosby talking about semen. Great stuff. Also pretty offensive. But did Aflac mind? Hell no. They forked over the cash while Gilbert did that stupid duck impression.

Fast forward to February 2011. I was bored harassing people on Yelp, so I decided to finally break down and get a Twitter account. This was just in time for the Oscars. That night Norm MacDonald, Anthony Cumia( from the Opie and Anthony show) and Gilbert had me rolling with their live Tweets about the idiots on stage. This was a few weeks after Ricky Gervais had flamed everyone on the Golden Globes. Suddenly, awards shows were the thing to watch if you wanted a laugh. Anyhow, a few weeks after that, the tsunami hits Japan. I start texting people nasty stuff(as I did right after Katrina, Haiti, and pretty much any other tragedy). Who is the only one with the balls to say anything on Twitter? Gilbert. I was shocked that he would say these things in a public forum, but absolutely delighted. I felt so privileged to be there at that moment as he took on the world from his apartment. Of course the backlash has been laughable, hypocrtitcal and downright uninformed regarding this dude. I just wanted to pledge my undying support for this champion of free speech and unflinching humor.