Words Words Words

Any comedy CD that starts of with “I’m a feminine Eminem” has got to be good. 19 year old musical comedian on the Comedy Central roster that is from the Robin Williams school of stand-up, meaning really smart, scathing with a great silliness. Robin Williams is mostly famous for top-notch, marginally funny movies (and of course the rather dumb Mork and Mindy TV show in the 70’s). What’s not as well known is his style of stand-up, which is uber-intelligent humor bordering on geekiness. Burnham is our generation’s Williams, even turning Shakespeare (as did Williams) and quantum mechanics/physics into humor. That said, this is not “nudge nudge wink wink” nerd humor. Burnham covers the spread, rides the gauntlet of subjects. Like Zach Galifianakis he throws in the piano for great results and the CD includes a few tracks of in-studio versions that are on the level of Weird Al material (or better). Brilliant stuff, with nods to all the greats (he even tributes Steve Martin joking about stage lighting).

1) studio song: Weird Al brilliance, plays on words words words with “catchy choruses”
2) his take on commercial hip hop, lampoons all the clichés
3) best joke ever opens this start to the live stand up, piano song that launches his smart style asking “what’s funny?”, plus the best self deprecating masturbation joke
4) “how Hitler rose to power”, finding lemons, “blood in the streets”, Dali humor a la Robin W., great stand up
5) plays guitar to a spoof on the cliché “men vs women” comedy theme, “women can fake orgasms but men can fake love”, great
6) “the catholic orgasm”, really smart stuff, too smart
7) song about irony, much better than alanis morrisette or whoever did that shitty hit ten years ago
8) “what is art?”, more super smart witty stuff, spoofing “observational humor”
9) live piano version of the opening song, cool to hear it done live
10) brief, poke on religion, “laughter is the best medicine besides medicine”
11) haikus: great!!! Play this!! (with the nod to steve martins “can I get a blue spot?”), then he goes into a whole Shakespeare thing (that is a nod to Robin Williams, whether anyone else knows or not!!)
12) silly “garage band” song, rapping, mashed up, religion theme
13) Physics humor, yes, physics humor that would be quite appropriate on a Stanford radio station, with a great mean joke about Sara Palin, and a dick joke
14) great piano comedy on artists
15) Socrates, sure why not, then great stupid basic jokes
16) live piano version of track 2