Comics are funny

My friend Mindy used to say "Comics are funny!" Boy she wasn't kidding.....


I got hooked on it when I was about 11 or 12 (around the mid 80's). Each summer I would go off to camp and those of us who were regulars knew to bring any comedy cassettes we could get our hands on. We would listen to them all night, and then recite them all the next day. We even found if you put your tape player up to the outlet in the wall the people on the other side could listen to since the outlet was located on the same spot on the connecting walls of the dorm rooms where we stayed at camp. We would make dubs of tapes and dubs of dubs and so on.



Some of the first tapes I ever heard were Eddie Murphy, Robin Williams, Bill Cosby, Sam Kinison, Jay Hickman, and Billy Crystal. Then when I was 14, Eddie Murphy came to a nearby university and I was exposed to my first ever live comic performance. Eddie was on the Raw tour and blew me away. That next summer Gallagher came to the fair. Again I was astonished with his material. The next year I got pulled on stage by Judy Tenuta where she made me get down on all fours and she rode me around singing a song about being a love slave and jokingly whipping me with a leather whip.



I began to seek out more stand up comedy and found I could turn to HBO and a new station on the tv that would eventually become Comedy Central. Back in that time, CC was mostly showing 6 or 8 hour loops of short comedy clips of comics. This is where I discovered and fell in love with the material and the delivery of performers such Kevin Pollak, Jake Johannsen, Chris Fonseca, Richard Jeni, Howie Mandel, Bob Nelson, Steve Mittleman, Larry Miller, Ray Romano, Paul Reiser, Robert Hawkins, Brian Regan, Steven Wright and countless others who made me fall in love with comedy.



I started going back to listen to older Robert Klein, Redd Foxx, Bob Newhart, Richard Pryor and George Carlin as I was consuming as much of the current content as I could.



To this day I still listen and make my way to the comedy clubs that are about 2 hours away as much as time and budget allows.

Currently listening : Feelin' Kinda Patton By Patton Oswalt Release date: 29 June, 2004

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Identity Crisis

What do people say to you when you are introduced and give them your name? For me, about a third of the time it's "Just like the guy from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, is that where you got your name?"


....."UMMMMM NOOOOOO!"



My name is Carlton. I am not the guy above, nor am I named after him. First of all, I'm frickin' 31 years old and by golly, I look it. So, it's not likely I'm named after a character from a TV show, that I was watching in college. But that just doesn't stop some people from instantly drawing the comparison. Many people have admitted to me while they were certain I wasn't named after that character, that in fact, the first thing they thought of when they hear my name is the Alfonso Ribeiro character of Carlton Banks from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Although I am tempted sometimes to watch some reruns of the show and learn the little dance that he does from time to time on the show. Then when anyone asks me about it, I could just break into the dance and say yes I'm named after a TV character who didn't get on the air until 16 years after I was born.

At least no one asks if I'm named after another Carlton character that was also on NBC at the same time. It was just for a few episodes, but William Hickey played the role of Carlton Blanchard on on Wings. Nobody but me remembers that guy, not even the stars of Wings. I met Crystal Bernard one time who played the role of Helen Chappel on the show. She was signing an autograph for me and asked my name. I replied "Carlton, just like the grumpy old man Carlton Blanchard from the show...". All I got back was this completely blank stare. She was totally lost. Now this guy had been on the show, and had a scene with her where she actually says his name within a year of when I met her, but she was still completely blank. I quickly explained a storyline from the show involving him and she just nodded and smiled. I stopped explaining then, figuring to continue further would begin to move me from fan to stalker.


As for my name...I'm not named after anyone or anything....not even a pack of cigarettes. I just got the name. I was born a year and a half before Carlton Fisk became famous for his world series home run. I'm sorry I don't have something exciting to tell you...I'm just me.

Currently listening : One Way Ticket to Hell...And Back By The Darkness Release date: 29 November, 2005

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