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photo by Simone Turkington
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Hangout Review
Neil Hamburger
at The Knitting Factory, Hollywood
April 23, 2005
Neil Hamburger is probably a character more than he’s a comedian. He’s one of those people you’ve heard about for years, maybe read some zine interviews with him, caught a joke here and there. But one of the problems with being a cult figure in show business is that cults are generally pretty small. He’s got indie cred firing out his dickhole, but his performances don’t quite lend themselves to general consumption. If he died tomorrow, he’d likely be proclaimed an artistic genius. But in the over-saturated world of stand-up comedy he sits, right now, somewhere among obnoxious, sorta funny, and masochistic weirdo. Maybe that’ll change soon. There were stars at his show in Hollywood. We’re talking A-list rockers and comedians/iennes. And they bought his merch! Woooooo stars!
Why did God invent the company Pfizer?
Because Jesus Christ absolutely refused to promote the drug Lipitor.
That was my favorite punchline of the night. It’s so fucking stupid. It’s like a dad joke. Everyone knows that dads are retards. The good ones are jolly, but you can’t help but roll your eyes when they start joking with you. Hamburger’s a drunken, crass asshole dad, then. His punchlines are often over-reaching puns; it’s a bit of a stretch to follow where he’s going. Or he simply lofts some cruel, curse-laden phrases at overexposed celebrities. Just when you thought Michael Jackson jokes couldn’t get more ridiculous, he gets you with this one:
Why did Michael Jackson dangle his baby out the window?
He was punishing him for not finishing his plate of sperm.
And ET. Who cares about giving hell to ET? It’s totally absurd to choose a puppet actor from 20 years ago as a target.
Why does ET like Reeses Pieces so much?
Because they taste like cum on his home planet.
I realize it’s ridiculous to try to explain why jokes are funny. It’s not as enjoyable when you turn it into science—not just a visceral reaction. But Neil Hamburger is funny, I think, because humans are mean. It’s like those jokes you used to tell about NKOTB being fags. It’s senselessly juvenile and sort of liberating in its asininity. Sometimes we’re laughing at Neil Hamburger and his preposterous, sweaty and booze-addled personality; sometimes he’s laughing at us for being idiots; sometimes we’re laughing together at the Red Hot Chili Peppers because they went under a bridge downtown “to find a pile of shit to jack off on.” It’s fun to hate people, even if it is just for laughs.
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