The Liam McEneaney Experience

I dated a woman who was going through acupuncture school, and I let her practice on me.

She said, "You're going to love this. It's so relaxing, it's better than a massage."

Better than a massage. Right. Because the only thing more relaxing than having someone drive ten inch steel needles into your back is to have it done by someone who's learning how to do it for the first time.

Anyway, I am here to tell you that if ever there was a bad time to have an argument with a woman...

She was practicing on me, and we were fighting about my jacket, which had a neck-guard that was a leather strip to keep out the cold.

And she said, "Leather is murder. You may not have noticed, I never wear leather."

And I said - and I'm going to quote myself exactly here: "I thought all cows wear leathAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR OH MY FUCKING GOD!"

And she relaxed my spine to the point that I couldn't walk for the next two days.

* * * * *

My favorite recurring character on SCTV was Count Floyd, whose "Monster Chiller Horror Theater" invariably showed the worst horror movies.

Here he shows "Dr. Tongue's Evil House of Pancakes (in 3-D):


And here (after a cop show parody) he shows "Dr. Tongue's 3-D House of Stewardesses":


And here he accidentally booked a Bergman film:

It's the only restaurant in the world where a mushroom pizza will cost twenty bucks an ounce.

* * * * *

The dumbest recent schools controversy was most definitely the ban on cell phones in public schools. Parents were actually protesting because their kids weren't allowed to have phones inn the classroom.

And their arguments were so weak: "What if I need to contact my kid in an emergency?"
Um, that's what the school has a phone for, dumbass. Unless your son is Batman, there's no emergency where he needs to be notified the second it happens.

"But what happens if there's another 9/11?"
Is your daughter a police officer? What are you going to say? "Joanne, there's been an awful, awful catastrophe. everyone's panicking. I'll pick you up at 3:00, honey. Bye."

Also, I was in NYC on 9/11, and the first thing that went down was cell phone service. Why? because every asshole willing to risk brain cancer was calling all their friends to find out that they didn't know what was going on either.

And while we're on the subject, why does your kid have a cell phone? So you can call them? I guarantee, a child old enough to have a cell phone, the first thing they're going to do is screen your calls.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are people who desperately need to reach an 11 year-old on the phone right away. Problem is, those are usually the kinds of people who should never be calling an 11 year-old on the phone.

* * * * *

The original The Producers movie is one of my favorite things ever. And if you're only familiar with the (also excellent in its own way) Broadway version, you are missing out on what can only be described as a "genuine pleasure."

In the movie, desperate Broadway producer has-been Zero Mostel and innocent accountant led astray Gene Wilder are trying to create the biggest flop in Broadway history by creating a musical tribute to Adolf Hitler. In this scene, they're auditioning actors, none of whom has that special awfulness that can really tank a production. Just when all seems lost, in walks hippy Lorenzo St. Dubois, as played by comedian Dick Shawn. Enjoy:

But I am the hardest to spell.

* * * * *

If you like comedy, you're going to want to be here. Trust me:

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 26th
Tell Your Friends!
at the Lolita bar!
266 Broome St., at the corner of Allen
8:00pm - FREE!

WITH YOUR HOST: Victor Varnado - from "Late Night w/ Conan O'Brien" and "Jimmy Kimmel Live!"

AND:
Todd Barry - has been seen on two (2) "Comedy Central Presents Todd Barry" specials, "The Late Show w/ David Letterman," "Late Night w/ Conan O'Brien," and is a writer for "The Sarah Silverman Program"

Arj Barker - has been seen on two (2) "Comedy Central Presents Arj Barker" specials, "Late Night w/ Conan O'Brien" and "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" and is an original writer/star of the Off-Broadway hit, "The Marijuanalogues"

Tony Camin - has appeared on "Late Night w/ Conan O'Brien," "Tough Crowd w/ Colin Quinn," "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" and is an original writer/star of the Off-Broadway hit, "The Marijuanalogues"

Liam McEneaney - has been on Comedy Central's Premium Blend and VH1's Best Week Ever

Ophira Eisenberg - has been seen on Comedy Central's "Premium Blend" and "Fresh Faces of Comedy" and the Discovery Channel's "Lost Treasures of the Deep"

Cock Lorge - Blender called one of his songs one of the 100 best of 2004

Livia Scott - is a marvelously talented actress and comedian

and our house band, A Brief View of the Hudson

WHAT THE PRESS HAS SAID ABOUT "TELL YOUR FRIENDS!"
* Time Out New York called it a "DON'T MISS" several times now, and said: "With a slew of talented stand-ups . . . and folk-rock duo 'A Brief View of the Hudson,' Liam McEneaney's new show—and 'workout comedy room'—is sure to please."
* The NY Daily News made it a Monday pick of the day more than once
* AM New York put it in their "Best Bets" section.
* "Editor's Pick!" - clubfreetime.com
* The Onion says, "Though it's pegged as a 'workout room' for comics to test their new(ish) material, Liam McEneaney's weekly show Tell Your Friends flexes enough comedic muscle to pull its weight alongside more established downtown shows. Demetri Martin, Slovin & Allen, and Late Night With Conan O'Brien writer Brian Kiley are among the stand-ups who have squeezed into Lolita's narrow space since the show's debut this summer, alongside the surprisingly tolerable resident folk duo A Brief View of the Hudson."

* * * * *

Here's a segment that shows off Fernwood 2Nite's brilliantly understated, subtle, yet broad sense of humor. Why this show isn't on DVD is beyond me:

Hey kids, today you can catch me video-blogging at The AOL's DL.



Video-blogging is a lot like regular blogging, except I stumble over my jokes and you can see my "hat head."

They asked me to write on a bunch of topics, and they chose the Al Gore thing. So here are some of the other video blog essays you probably won't see:

MUSICIAN IN THE SPORTS ILLUSTRATED SWIMSUIT ISSUE
This year's Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue features a bunch of musicians posing with the swimsuit models.

What kind of fucked-up world do we live in where sex is no longer enough to sell?
Are people saying, "Who's in this week's Playboy? Pamela Anderson? Who cares - wait a second, and Badly Drawn Boy? I've got to read this!"

I'm sure Jimmy Buffet's music has helped conceive some of these models, but I don't want him standing in frame of my, you know, pump-priming materials.

*

THE MILLI VANILLI MOVIE
Universal, the studio that gave us Frankenstein, has revealed that they're producing a new horror show - a movie based on the Milli Vanilli story.

I love this, because essenetially, I'm the world's laziest comedy writer, and these jokes write themselves:
"They're going to play themselves, but their voices will be overdubbed by... wah wah wah."

It's appropriate that the Frankenstein studio is producing this; just like the late Dr. Victor, they're stitching together the dead and rotting pieces of pop culture long dead and giving it a criminal brain best left buried.

*

PAULA ABDUL
People are getting all upset because Paula Abdul has been seen drunk on TV.

So what? There was a time when everyone was drunk on TV. That time was called "The 1950s." You'd watch a talk show:
"This next guy, he's great and he's my best friend."
"Man I love you, you're the best."
"Aww, shaddup you old so-and-so."

You know what you would call the Rat Pack today?
"The Las Vegas Chapter of AA."

*

Here's a rare Marx Brothers clip; a scene from their Broadway hit I'll Say She Is!, from a Paramount publicity film:

is the name of an HBO documentary that a friend of mine produced, about the porn world surprisingly enough. (My mom can skip today's entry, by the way. I guarantee it's the kind of thing where she's going to wrinkle her nose as she tells me that there's no need for that.)

So I watched some of that, and it's interesting because the first thing they showed were audition scenes, in this sleazy little office in California. Which is crazy, because I'd never thought about it before, but yeah, people have to audition for that stuff. I always assumed that if you wanted to have sex on-camera bad enough, there would be room for you. I honestly just thought that you showed up, said, "I want to suck a stranger's cock for a thousand bucks," and they said, "Go for it."

Oh, what a starry-eyed dreamer I am.

But what was crazy was they said that thousands of people come to audition every year, which means that lots of people aren't good enough actors to be in porn. The mind boggles. I would imagine you would have to be literally mentally retarded.

Also, I know lots of actors who never made it, and they're bitter. Can you imagine how bitter you have to be if you never made it as a porn actor? "I had one dream when I came to California, and that was to be the biggest jizz-guggling ass slut in the world. But no, they had to go with someone who 'doesn't have bullet holes in her ass'. Hey, those are what give me character. Did you see Misty Melons do a double-penetration backwards cowboy? Where did she learn that, the Girl Scouts? I could out-fuck that bitch with one hand tied behind - with both hands tied behind my back, blindfolded, with a dwarf riding me."

There might be a joke in all that mess.

* * * * *

Now for something a little more wholesome. A lot of people, when they think of W.C. Fields, think of the old drunk in a straw hat with a big red nose, the one they've seen caricatured in those old Warner Brothers cartoons. But that's literally half the story. Among his many unforgotten talents, he was an amazing juggler. Here he performs a routine as The Great McGonigle:

This week, to help us keep the spirit of Presidential comedy alive, we have one of the best lineups in NYC, and that's no lie. And if you remember last year's Presidentacular, then you know this year is going to be completely, um... We're going to have - I don't know - sales on cars and linens and stuff. Look, some holidays just aren't that exciting or glamorous, and you can't do a special theme show about all of them.

Some past failed holiday shows:
* The Arboring World of Tree-Themed Comedy Show
* The Yom Kippur Solemn Day of Atonementally Ill Crazy Madhouse!
* Ganesh Chat-hurty-My-Sides Laughapalooza!
* The I'd-Like-To-Apologize-To-Muslims-You're-Right-There's-Nothing-Funny-About-That SpecWACKular!
* Winter Solstice Full Moon Child Sacrifice Yo-Momma-Joke Throwdown!
* Easter FUNday Bring 'Im Back Laffin'! Fundraiser for the Homeless

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 19th
Tell Your Friends!
at the Lolita bar!
266 Broome St., at the corner of Allen
8:00pm - FREE!

WITH YOUR HOST: Eric Kirchberger

AND:
Joe Garden - is the Features Editor at The Onion

Brian Kiley - writes for "Late Night w/ Conan O'Brien" and has been seen on his own "Comedy Central Presents Brian Kiley" special as well as "The Late Show with David Letterman"

Christian Finnegan - is currently headlining Comedy Central's "Two For Flinching" college tour behind his album on Comedy Central Records called "Two For Flinching," and he had a "Comedy Central Presents Christian Finnegan" special

Liam McEneaney - has been on Comedy Central's "Premium Blend" and VH1's "Best Week Ever"

Amanda Melson - is warming up for her first TV appearance on Comedy Central's "Live at Gotham"

Kristen Schaal - has been seen on "Live at Gotham" and at the Aspen Comedy Festival

and our house band, A Brief View of the Hudson

WHAT THE PRESS HAS SAID ABOUT "TELL YOUR FRIENDS!"
* Time Out New York called it a "DON'T MISS" twice now, and said: "With a slew of talented stand-ups . . . and folk-rock duo 'A Brief View of the Hudson,' Liam McEneaney's new show—and 'workout comedy room'—is sure to please."
* The NY Daily News made it a Monday pick of the day.
* AM New York put it in their "Best Bets" section.
* "Editor's Pick!" - clubfreetime.com
* The Onion says, "Though it's pegged as a 'workout room' for comics to test their new(ish) material, Liam McEneaney's weekly show Tell Your Friends flexes enough comedic muscle to pull its weight alongside more established downtown shows. Demetri Martin, Slovin & Allen, and Late Night With Conan O'Brien writer Brian Kiley are among the stand-ups who have squeezed into Lolita's narrow space since the show's debut this summer, alongside the surprisingly tolerable resident folk duo A Brief View of the Hudson."

* * * * *

If you love comedy, then you love George Carlin. And even if you don't, you know this bit - it's the seven words you can't say on TV:

But first, I'll be on the popular Keith & The Girl podcast this afternoon, sometime around 3-ish.

* * * * *

Here's a poem I wrote on Valentine's Day, back in 2002. Every year, it's my tradition to post it:

AFTER I BROKE UP WITH YOU
After I broke up with you, I started thinking about you and me.
After I broke up with you, I started drinking to the way we used to be.
Do you remember? I do,
The way you owe me forty bucks.
I mean, no big deal, whenever you can get it to me is cool,
It's not like it bothers me or anything.
It's only forty bucks.
But still, you've owed it to me for a while now, and a little consideration would be nice.
All right, I won't bring it up again.

Now you say you think about me,
That you love me, and can not live without me.
But that's not what you were saying when I made all those jokes about wanting to have sex with your roommate.
Woman: Ficklety is thy name!
Come on now, honestly. If I thought for one second your roommate would actually be into me, do you really think i would have brought it up so many times?
No sense of humor, that's your problem.

Um, your roommate isn't into me, is she? Just, I know the way you girls talk.
Relax, jeez! Can't you tell when a fella's kidding?

You say it's the little things you're missing,
My little touches along the nape of your neck, my softest kissing.
And there are things I miss too,
Like that forty bucks I lent you.
Look, I know I said I wouldn't bring it up again, but I know how you forget the important things.
Like the time you said you'd pay my cable bill and then forgot after you had to go to the emergency room.
And I had to go without seeing that VH1 special on the Go-Gos.
You know how much I love the Go-Gos.

Seriously, I know that when I lent you the forty bucks, I may have used words like, "Keep it, it's yours, it's a gift, please take it I don't expect it back."
But honey, you have to know when I'm kidding.
This goes back to that whole "No Sense of Humor Thing" I was just talking about.
Like that time your sister accused me of making a drunken pass at her at your cousin's wedding,
And I told you she was a liar and that she was stealing money from your grandmother's purse for heroin,
And you didn't talk to her for eight months.
Well, of course I was just kidding.

Besides, I needed that money more than your grandmother did.
Your grandfather's insurance left her loaded.
I mean, how else was I going to pay for your birthday dinner? My job?
I can't believe you actually thought I had a job. Get real!
Vice-President of Finance at Goldman Sachs?
Honey, would the Vice President of Finance dress like this?

That's when the trouble began.
Your friends started putting ideas in your head,
Mean, awful ideas like "self-respect," and "you need a man who doesn't use you."
Frankly, I was as insulted as you were.
And so I had to dump you.
I can't be seeing someone who's weak enough to be swayed by the first trendy self-help idea that comes down the pike.
If I ever meet that Dr. Phil guy, I'm gonna punch him in the nose.
As I stand here among my belongings, which you are even now throwing out of your third-floor apartment window, I say this:
All right, but I'm only going to give you one last chance.
To give me my forty bucks back.

* * * * *

For Valentine's Day, here's a video from Tampa, Florida, public access. A woman named Sondra Prill was famous for making her own videos. And so here you are, Sondra Prill's version of "Addicted to Love." (It sounds like it was recorded in the Tampa Sewer System's Karaoke Night.)

"Touch my sister and you're dead!"

I said the wrong thing. I said, "Don't worry, you can't die from herpes."

tee hee

* * * * *

Here's tape of one of my true comedy heroes (a man who doesn't perform out or on-camera nearly as often as I wish he would), Tom Lehrer:

Sure, you can sit around your apartment, stare at your significant other and wait for them to smell better. But instead, bring your loved one or even your spouse out to our little show, because this week it's our annual Valentine's Day special. We're going to give up some fun surprises, and an audience member will have chance to win a free drink if you can impress with your tales of dating woe!

Here's some alternate names for this week's show:
* "My Punny Valentine!"
* "Tell Your 'Just Friends'!"
* "Love Laughs at Andy, Hardly!"
* "Fart-Shaped Box!"
* "My Big Fat Geek Bed-Wetting!"
* "Love Stinks - Like That Diaper You Wore When You Drove 12 Hours To Pepperspray Your Crush's Girlfriend In An Airport Parking Lot at 4am!"

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 12th
Tell Your Valentine!
at the Lolita bar!
266 Broome St., at the corner of Allen
8:00pm - FREE!

WITH YOUR HOST: Liam McEneaney

Featuring:
Jason Reich - is an Emmy-winning writer for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and a former Nerve dating columnist. He is trying to break your heart

Leo Allen - is a former Saturday Night Live writer (he created "The Falconer") and with his sketch partner had a "Comedy Central Presents" 1/2-hour special, and is saving himself for marriage

Reggie Watts - so appropriately named because he's freaking electric! He's been showcased at the prestigious Montreal Comedy Festival and Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Get ready to fall in love with improvised beatboxing/comedy all over again

Jon Friedman - creator of the popular Rejection Show, a book about which is due to be released soon. One thing he'll never reject - your love

Diane Langan - of the cult hit duo The O'Debra Twins. Knowing Diane is like getting hugged by a puppy wrapped in a rainbow and stuffed into a tiny chocolate and packed into a heart-shaped box

Josh Comers - is a NYC comedy hero. Cupid, draw back your bow!

Plus, our opening act, A Brief View of the Hudson!

WHAT THE PRESS HAS SAID ABOUT "TELL YOUR FRIENDS!"
* Time Out New York called it a "DON'T MISS" several times, and said: "With a slew of talented stand-ups . . . and folk-rock duo 'A Brief View of the Hudson,' Liam McEneaney's new show—and 'workout comedy room'—is sure to please."
* The NY Daily News made it a Monday pick of the day.
* AM New York put it in their "Best Bets" section.
* "Editor's Pick!" - clubfreetime.com
* The Onion says, "Though it's pegged as a 'workout room' for comics to test their new(ish) material, Liam McEneaney's weekly show Tell Your Friends flexes enough comedic muscle to pull its weight alongside more established downtown shows. Demetri Martin, Slovin & Allen, and Late Night With Conan O'Brien writer Brian Kiley are among the stand-ups who have squeezed into Lolita's narrow space since the show's debut this summer, alongside the surprisingly tolerable resident folk duo A Brief View of the Hudson."

* * * * *

Because you've been good, here's Fred Travelena in blackface as Eddie Murphy on the old Regis & Kathie Lee show (via Adam Felber). And yes, you're really seeing what you think you're seeing:

Because honestly, the only thing better than your third big dump of the day is your fifth big dump of the day.

* * * * *

A tattoo artist - that's the only kind of artist where you don't want to see their stuff hanging on a wall.

* * * * *

This Sunday's Super Bowl was truly inspirational; Lovie Smith became the first African-American head coach in history to lose a Super Bowl. What a disgrace!

(That's a play on all the hype around Tony Dungy being the first Afric- ah, forget it.)

* * * * *

I saw a truck with "MOBILE FRIED CHICKEN" painted on the side today.

Which makes sense; if Fried Chicken truly is a daily staple of your diet, you probably need it to come to you.

You're probably reading this thinking, "I'd love to go to the KFC drive-thru, but all the getting in and out of my car leaves me winded."

* * * * *

Another great thing about the Super Bowl was the amazing halftime show, starring Marla Gibbs (Florence the maid from the Jeffersons):



(Okay, it was Prince. Actually, it was truly fantastic, especially seeing it at my friends' apartment in HD with stereo surround sound.)

I know, I should really be giving you a fun intro to this post, but honestly I'm so out of it I can't hardly keep my eyes open. Yesterday, I had a big barbecue lunch with some friends in midtown, and literally ate myself into a food coma; I got home and passed out on my apartment floor. I mean, I actually woke up face-down on my apartment floor, sleeping on my arm.

And it was either all the food or that heroin I shot in to my arm - AY DIOS MIOS!

Regardless, you're going to love this week's edition of Tell Your Friends! so here we go:

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 5th
Tell Your Friends!
at the Lolita bar!
266 Broome St., at the corner of Allen
8:00pm - FREE!

WITH YOUR HOST: Chris DeLuca

Featuring:
Demetri Martin - is a correspondant for "The Daily Show w/ Jon Stewart" and his Comedy Central one-hour special, "Demetri Martin: Person," aired a couple of weeks ago

Todd Hanson - is the head writer for The Onion

Liam McEneaney has been on Comedy Central's Premium Blend and VH1's Best Week Ever

DC Benny - has been seen on Comedy Central's "USO Tour," "The Late Late Show w/ Craig Kilborn," and "Showtime at the Apollo"

Bobby Tisdale - had an album out on Comedy Central Records called "Invite Them Up"

Brooke Van Poppelen - is from "Chicago," the city not the musical

Plus, our opening act, A Brief View of the Hudson!

WHAT THE PRESS HAS SAID ABOUT "TELL YOUR FRIENDS!"
* Time Out New York called it a "DON'T MISS" several times, and said: "With a slew of talented stand-ups . . . and folk-rock duo 'A Brief View of the Hudson,' Liam McEneaney's new show—and 'workout comedy room'—is sure to please."
* The NY Daily News made it a Monday pick of the day.
* AM New York put it in their "Best Bets" section.
* "Editor's Pick!" - clubfreetime.com
* The Onion says, "Though it's pegged as a 'workout room' for comics to test their new(ish) material, Liam McEneaney's weekly show Tell Your Friends flexes enough comedic muscle to pull its weight alongside more established downtown shows. Demetri Martin, Slovin & Allen, and Late Night With Conan O'Brien writer Brian Kiley are among the stand-ups who have squeezed into Lolita's narrow space since the show's debut this summer, alongside the surprisingly tolerable resident folk duo A Brief View of the Hudson."

* * * * *

Here's an outtake from the never-rekeased Bob Dylan documentary, "Eat the Document," a scene with a fucked up Bob Dylan riding in the backseat of a limo with a fucked up John Lennon.

I lost my latest joke notebook (again. Really. I'm an idiot). So I guess I don't have as much to talk about as I'd like.

But for now, we'll talk about something that gets under my skin way more than it should, which is if you ever want to tell someone who is not a native New Yorker - someone who moved here because OHMYGOD Seinfeld and Ross and Chandler and Samantha and all those other TV characters that they act just like but without the army of writers to make them interesting or witty all lived here - if you want to tell these people, it's really easy: they're the ones who say "real New Yorkers have..." or "You can tell a real New Yorker by..." and then describing something that I, a "real" New Yorker, would never have or do.

And if you want to find these people, they generally work for Time Out NY. (Nice cover story: "Why Queens?" Here's an answer: "Because it's snobby assholes like you that priced the working class out of Brooklyn.") (But thanks for making my show "Pick of the Week." Seriously.)

Here's how you can tell if you're a "real" New Yorker - you can remember flipping through the channels in the early '90s and coming across the cheap-ass old Howard Stern Channel 9 show. I never openly liked Stern because when I was young I was a bit intellectually pretentious, and the die-hard Stern fans you'd see on TV during his Nuremberg Rally-like publicity stunts were genuinely frightening, like an army of inbred hillbillies.

But I would watch this show while my parents were out of the room (they HATED Stern), so I didn't really see whole episodes. However, the image of Stern in bad Ronald Reagan makeup was so frightening that it got burned into my skull.

Here's a clip from the old Stern show, the Ramones playing golf with Billy "Ren & Stimpy" West as President George H.W. Bush: