Blll Burr is a comedian with an eye for detail. He specializes in commentary on human activity, especially the stuff that doesn’t make much sense, stuff we nevertheless, for stupid reasons, do all the time.
Stuff so stupid, it would make Dumb and Dumber feel at home.
Stuff that has become the norm, and which we give in to without questioning why.
Bill Burr breaks down that barrier, laying it out on the line. No reservations, no holds barred.
Some topics are controversial. We aren’t used to having a mirror shoved in our faces and being made to laugh (what are we, bozos?) and things get awkward. We’re not sure whether to laugh, cry, or get offended. We usually do all three, one of them in private.
Burr loooves to get in your face. He stares the issues in the eye, kicks them in the nose, twists our fucking nipples and tosses us to the side, one after the other, with relentless ease. He’s an angry man with a logical agenda, a courageous heart and a funny-bunny bone.
Kudos! His comedy is insightful commentary at its best. Controversial, incendiary comedyrant.
Here’s an example. Burr loves to identify how neutered society has become as it obsesses over a morality gone haywire. The world, he says in so many words, has been fixed, ending up thinking and behaving like a pet that daren’t get out of line, for fear offending its master, whoever it may be.
He goes on to name a few of these masters. Political correctness, extreme liberalism, marriage values, the pop-culture society and its mindless obsessions with idiot fads, not to mention extreme feminism, over-affirmative action, reverse discrimination, overdevelopment, overpopulation, rampant growth — these topics, from both sides of the political and gender spectrums, fall in Burr’s sights, and he pulls the trigger without hesitation, boom, boom, boom, taking out pretension after motherfucking pretension.
Burr likes the face-off approach. He stares the issues in the eye and kicks them in the nose, twists our fucking nipples and tosses us to the side…
The comedy, of course, is the ace up his sleeve. If he were to say his piece without the humor, he’d be booed, pointed at, harassed and arrested, if not lynched on the spot.
But he manages to get the audience on his side. He has a way of dissipating the tension, getting away with murder. He kills and he gets away with it (the violent analogies are meant to reflect his angry material) entering and exiting stage left to a standing ovation, on account of his cheek.
Here are a couple of choice quotes from his routine, followed by the first segment of his show Why Do I Do This:
‘Take it down a few coz you’re making it fucking awkward out there. Dude you can’t say hi to kids anymore.’
‘It’s just embarrassing for all races involved. For the love of God, stop making that fucking movie!’
He manages to get the audience on his side. He has a way of dissipating the tension, getting away with murder.
Here’s the next segment, with a few choice quotes:
‘[My dog] lived for fifteen years with its balls, without incident, you know, no sexual harassment, nothing.’
‘Dude, the deer didn’t put a hole in the ozone layer.’
‘You can just keep banging away, making one useless, mediocre kid after another.’
‘Everyone talks about cars and oil, but that doesn’t matter. There’s just too many people doing it… You wanna help the environment, just stop fucking. I’m not saying ‘stop fucking,’ but you know, pull out!”’
‘How many more strip malls can you make?’
‘There’s no physical ramifications for being an asshole when you’re a woman.’
More to follow …