So today's one hour on the treadmill was filled with something I was quite excited for. I really enjoyed Chris Rock's special back in the 90's called "Bring the Pain", which I consider to be one of the best stand-up performances by anyone ever.

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Like many of the better comedians, Chris doesn't rely at all on music, props, or a slide show behind him on the wall with images and I unfortunately come bearing the news that "perhaps he should have." This special just isn't very funny. I don't know if Chris has already used up all of his good material, or perhaps he has been super-rich for too long to really identify with the "common man" anymore. I don't know. I do know that I didn't laugh very often and that is a shame. The crowd has a kind of lukewarm reaction to his jokes as well.

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One thing that irritates me about Chris in this special is he gets too preachy about race and the worst thing is that his jokes about this are based on bad statistics or just ignorance. Basically it seemed like he was pandering to a primarily African American crowd. I'm not offended or anything, i just don't think it was funny even if the stats he was quoting were true (and they're not - which i think can lead to even more people believing untrue things.)

He also stated something in this that is fundamentally untrue: He says that quicksand is dry and uses this as an example of imperfection in nature.

Perhaps I am nitpicking here but who told you that Chris? If quicksand was dry it would just be sand. He does stuff like this a lot actually.

He does the usual things to talk about politics and what not and he definitely chooses a side and again, this is pandering because he is in New York City. I don't really have a preference for any particular political standpoint and pretty much just hate all government equally - It isn't because I don't agree with him that I didn't like it. I didn't like it because it was hand-picked for a liberal audience that he knew would be in attendance. When you use politics in your comedy and you already know the crowd is statistically very likely to agree with you, this is not cutting-edge comedy. It is not pushing the limits of the art at all

That is what I liked about Joe Rogan's recent comedy called Strange Times - he did comedy more likely to appeal to the political leanings of conservatives.... IN BOSTON - where there are very few conservatives. The people still laughed because it was funny - not because they agree.

Maybe I should stop watching these things while running on a treadmill. I used to watch Anime but you know, a small screen with subtitles when you are supposed to be exercising just wasn't working out. As much as it pains me as a long-time fan of Chris Rock, this comedy special was a dud.

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