A Blue Night at the Comedy Club

Last night I went to one of the major comedy clubs in Denver, Comedy Works, and saw Joe Rogan. I didn't particularly have any feelings one way or another about him before the show, but I did have certain expectations going in.

I knew that he'd been a stand-up for a long time, and that his material was fairly "edgy." And I assumed that any comic with that background who then went on to be known for things as mainstream and often put upon as News Radio and Fear Factor was likely to start going even raunchier in his stand-up act. Call this the Bob Saget Effect.

I was not disappointed in this respect. But I was also very entertained. Both Joe Rogan and the opening act, a comedian named Ari Shafir, were on fire from beginning to end. Probably the least uncomfortable material in either set was a riff on the girl who got her arm bitten off by a shark while surfing, who after recovering got right back into surfing again. ("Where are the parents to say, 'now honey... we've already established that you're delicious, so do you think maybe you could try something else?'") And seeing as how that girl is one of the poster children for the "Pass It On" ad campaign, I could see how some people might get offended even by the jokes on that end of the spectrum.

On the other end of the spectrum were references to web sites I'm not about to mention here. Scary. But damn funny. I had actually tears coming down my face at one point from laughing so hard, an experience I've not had I think since the first time I saw Eddie Izzard on DVD.

So if your threshold for this sort of thing is sufficiently high, I would definitely recommend going to see Joe Rogan's stand-up if he happens to swing by your town.