Farley Elliott

The lovely ladies, Garfunkel & Oates. Photo via G & O. It seems that in the past month, you can't throw a joke book without hitting Garfunkel & Oates at some show around town. Not that you'd want to; these lovely ladies are quickly mastering the craft of beautiful songs with enough comedic edge to keep you in your seats. Both Riki Lindhome and Kate Micucci are well known faces on television and film,...

Money in the mail. Photo via kpe2 via LAist Flickr page. There's a lot of good stuff around town, as the comedy world gears up for next week's LA Improv Festival at iO West. Garfunkel and Oates are at UCB, Jo Koy is out and about, and Dave Attell is headlining with some hardcore hilarious folks. Not to mention Patton and his friends, and Maria Bamford at The Improv. It's stand up time! MONDAY...

Ah, Dane Cook. Regarded by some as the aggressive and rugged face of fun, energetic comedy. Sort of the anti-Mitch Hedberg. For others, Dane is a posterboy for an altogether different type of comic: the plagiarizer, the man without a punchline. Personally, I have long held that Dane Cook is a performer and not a stand up comedian, in the way that Bob Villa was a TV show host and not a licensed contractor....

As podcasts go, more often than not there are the kings of the ring, and everyone else is sitting on the sidelines. It’s sort of like the presidency: technically anyone can run for office, but historically old white dudes have passed the torch from one wrinkly hand to another. But every once in a while, there are wonderful examples of podcasts, and presidents, rising from the ground up to really do something spectacular. Barack...

As the mainstream media continues to crumble around us, more and more remaining news sources are turning to the internet as a legitimate resource for information and mass appeal. You can’t watch an evening news segment without hearing the word ‘twitter’, and most every single site now has a blog associated with it. GM has a blog? Kodak? Boeing? While occasionally a corporate blog can be helpful (see also: the Google blog any time Gmail...

The Smokes, 7p UCB. These improv veterans do two different long-form improv forms every single week, and every time they are fucking hilarious. An absolute can’t-miss for anyone seriously interested in long form improvisation. | You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up, 8p Comedy Central Stage. Based on excerpts from the upcoming book of the same name, Annabelle Gurwitch and Jeff Kahn tell tales of what it takes to be married. Apparently, it’s a lot.

Bo Burnham's new CD/DVD combo. Photo courtesy The Syndicate. Hello, web readers. If you’ve managed to find this small bit of writing out there in the vast internet, then there’s a good chance you’ve also heard of YouTube. That is, unless you’re my grandmother, whom I send links to and she opens without questioning where she is being taken to, and couldn’t get to google if you spotted her the ‘-oogle.com’. And since you’re...

Comedian Jo Koy has become an absolute staple in the mainstream stand up comedy circuit over the past five years. Fans really seem to appreciate Jo’s honesty and enthusiasm on stage; he’s like Dane Cook after you give him a horse tranquilizer and a joke book to calm him down. After touring with Carlos Mencia (for better or worse) on his Punisher Tour, Koy even got listed in Daily Variety as a top 10...

The outside of the new Westside Comedy theater, formerly Westside Eclectic. Photo courtesy M.i. Productions. ...Well, sort of. The new Westside Comedy theater, formerly the Westside Eclectic in Santa Monica, has undergone a renovation and (hopefully) a renaissance. A few months ago longtime touring improvisers Mission IMPROVable (M.i.) took a majority stake in the theater and have since decided to really revamp the look and feel of the place. Their mission? To be the...

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio. But with considerably less bling. Photo by arte via Flickr. Man, this is like the week of two-person shows. Between the amazing Garfunkel and Oates, Frankenmatt, Triple S, and Teenager of the Year, the stages in and around LA just boiling over with great stuff this week. And we're not even talking about the mind-blowing two man improv happening at UCB cagematch on Wednesday nights at 11p....