Kip Addotta "Life In The Slaw Lane"

 

(Laff, 1986) Only if you were on Laff, the label releasing Richard Pryor answering machine messages as comedy albums, would it be considered going bigtime moving up to Rhino, to be on the level of your Little Stevie Weingolds and Wild Man Fischers. But this was a step up, and the punnery on the veggie-tastic title track was almost as good as "Wet Dream," and the production (by longtime Poco member, current Elton John sideman, and occasional Weird Al keyboardist Kim Bullard) is the best prodcution serving produce puns of all time. Plus the VIDEO! Still not nearly as  funny as his frist LP, but if he didn't lean into "Wet Dream" he'd be a chump, let Dice tell the dick jokes, and "lettuce" be the ones enjoying this album. 

Kip Addotta "The Comedian of the United States"

(Laff, 1985) Not as funny as the first LP, but way more ambitious, with short stand up snippets between songs. An opening bit about being the President of comedy went nowhere, but tried. While most of the songs go nowhere, somehow a gloriously lame, but wonderfully enjoyable, series of awkward fish puns became a Dr. Demento crossover mainstream classic, "Wet Dream." It was a cod-damn hit! His white guy rap song could be worse (see Jim Belushi), he does not try to use AAVE or jive talk and it is not offensive. And not funny. 
 

Kip Addotta "I Hope I'm Not Out Of Line!"

 

(Laff, 1981) My only celeb retweet was in 2019 when Kip Addotta, best known for his fish pun-fest novelty hit "Wet Dream," passed away. I wrote "Rest In Perch," Addotta's mentee Drew Carey retweeted, and no one liked it. Still, my social media highlight. This debut album, after a long stretch of 70s stand up and TV appearances, is no songs, all stand up, and it's pretty good, especially for a Laff record, with basically pussy jokes being told  in Seinfeld's cadence. I can not offer a better endorsement.

V/A "Bubblegum"

 

(Pickwick, 1972) Thank god for this record.

Johnny and the Hurricanes "s/t"

 

(Warwick, 1959) While I understand the "Otis, my man!" Animal House fantasy of being cool with the soul men on the beach party circuit, to me actually being at the party with these honking sax white boys with weird jackets and ties playing ranks only two notches below being at the party Rodney Dangerfield presides over in an 80s movie (though well above the Uncle Buck-crashed teen party).

Willie Nelson "Laying My Burdens Down"

(RCA, 1970) This LP is perhaps most notable because Nelson does not embarrass himself at all playing around with Summer of Love-era flower generation balladry ("Where Do You Stand?" and "Minstrel Man," the former of which he composed), a man-of-all-the-people position to which he proved committed over the next half-Century. Bit I like it best for the soulful grooves of his original gospel-ish title track. This is just really good, as most of his pre-outlaw breakthrough albums prove to be when you track down the justly, but sadly, expensive LPs.

Eddie Arnold "Have Guitar Will Travel"

 

(RCA, 1959) I went thrifting in a Roswell, NM strip mall Salvation Army. I kind of wanted to get a record from 1947 that might have been spinning while aliens were (allegedly) crashing. But no way a 78 was gonna make it back to Chicago intact. The closest I got was a somewhat otherworldy Harmonicats 10" from 1950. This find barely even was even from the 1950s, those aliens were well-decomposed by the time this was purchased. But IT IS SO GOOD! That dude could just sing! And the theme is air travel, sort of (it is all US city songs like "Georgia On My Mind," with a great airport LP cover) so it is sort of space ship themed, in a way. And there were genuine weirdos in the thrift store. So i rate this record "Thrift Score!"

Bob's Red Mill Peanut Butter Jelly & Oats Bob's Bar

(Bobsredmill.com) Why is the Bob's Red Mill Peanut Butter Jelly &n Oats Bob's Bar like close-minded critics assessment of John Waters' early work? Tasteless!

Stoogemania

 

(Atlantic Entertainment, 1986) This bizarre film came to my attention when I looked into the career of Josh Mostel  (son of comedy legend Zero) whose role as an educator with a dark secret is a highlight  of Billy Madison. I was further intrigued upon learning that the obscure film featured Mousie Garner, an actual stooge of sorts (the Three Stooges have a long, complicated pre-and-post classic shorts-era history). I was certainly not disappointed upon finding the film, but it would be accurate, and appropriate, to say I was decidedly dumbfounded. The premise is that Howard (Mostel) is afflicted with a disorder called Stoogemania, which causes him to experience and manifest actual Stooges scenes (which we see, all from public domain Stooges shorts) which result in his life being plagued/blessed by surreal slapstick (including a popcorn tsunami and a human Frogger crossing the street sequence). His romance with a gal that finds him a hoot (played by Melanie Chartoff of Fridays) and the quest for approval by her haughty, though just shy of dowager-level, mother and father, lead him to try to conquer his affliction. He ends up in a very specific ghetto/funhouse/arcade awash in Stooge impersonators whose violence seems at least as dire as it is funny, all leading to his being institutionalized in a de-stooge-ifying rehab hospital where the medical staff (Sid Casesar is the diagnosing doc, Victoria Jackson is the off kilter nurse whose performance invokes industrial work harassment videos, nurse porn, and that Marvel Alice Cooper mental hospital comic book). Does it culminate in a wild, chaotic pie fight. Maybe, I can't really trust my senses as far as what I saw, this movie makes you feel like you have a disorder. But let me be perfectly clear, this is a positive review and throwing pies in stoogemaniacal joy has no relationship to throwing rotten tomatoes for any reason!

Old Style by Dmitri Samarov

 

(Pictures & Blather, 2021) This series of tavern-based vignettes and character studies and fucked up scenes with dim lights illuminating the unifying magic of a certain late night hour and level of inebriation where rich and poor, hipster and regular guy, old and young, all show their asses (sometimes literally). But unlike Dmitri's collections of cab driving vignettes and character studies and fucked up scenes with dim lights illuminating the unifying magic of a certain late night hour and level of inebriation where rich and poor, hipster and regular guy, old and young, all show their asses (sometimes literally), this is a novel. Because names have been minutely changed, and Dmitri is a character, not himself. And it is great. Is there an apposite of FOMO called something like GAFIWT (Glad As Fuck I Wasn't There), because reading about these bar shifts I am not envious. But I am intrigued. This is not romanticized or heroic like Bukowski (mainly because "Dmitri" is rarely interested in sinking to the depths of his cohort) but it's not the opposite of that either. And as an object this beautiful, generously illustrated book, is the perfect size and shape and you can take it anywhere! Even rehab!