The Aristocrats

Took two of my younger, Hollywood Death Cab pals to a screening last night. My gay lover got me the tickets so I played the big shot. After, we went out for Thai. At this point, Thai is not the exotic to me, but to a 20 year old kid, they've just landed on the moon. I ordered for us, and trying to navigate through their narrow food likes was difficult, but as we left the one was memorizing where the place was. He had to put in the context of a Hollywood Icon, so we pointed out the Pantages theater down the street, and he was good. The place is open until 4AM, it's a great place to go after the bars close, but they only take $$$. Torung, 5657 Hollywood Boulevard.

The screening was for the movie "The Aristocrats." Five seconds into the film someone I know is on screen. He's a friend-of-a-friend who who I pal around with sometimes. He writes for Mad TV. I was in his bear vs. rabbit segment, described on her earlier.

http://no-biz.blogspot.com/2005/02/care-bear-vs-briar-rabbit.html

Apparently he's making an entire movie, so I really need to suit up. I did a week of Rabbits off-broadway, so I'm ready for this role.

The Aristocrat movie is about a long-standing practice of telling newcomers to the comedy world a joke that's not really a joke. It's a rite of initiation into the club. You tell the greenhorn the joke to get him to turn green.

Goes like this:

A family walks into a talent agency.

"We have enuff family acts already," the agent sez dismissively.

"You haven't seen our act," sez the father. He then goes on to describe the act, which is comprised of your usual vaudevillian staples: incest, beastiality, fist-fucking, blood, retards, racism, scatological, fetus, etc.

While the horrified new comedian is waiting for a punchline that could make up for all this wrongness, the old-timer just bangs out:

The talent agent is agahst and sez "what do you call this act?"

The father beams and sez: "The Aristocrats!"

The movie had a haul of comedians, including many ready to hit the big buffet table in the sky. Phyllis Diller was still cracking wise at 90 something.

I kept trying to get my fellow Hollywood Death Cab Tourguides to do our version of the Aristocrats for our tour. They would have none of it. Weird. I like the idea of pitching our bosses a tour based on human filth. We're already exploiting the dead, sheez ...

I did love this from one of our tourguides as we sat supping on Thai food:

"I punched myself in the nose once. I was tricked. It hurt -- a lot.

The Shenanigan Bros. asked me if I wanted to do a strength test. They held my arm down like I was doing a curl, and then I pushed against their strength. Of course, they let go, and my fist slammed into my nose."

The Shenanigan Bros. are my new heros. I can't wait to try this trick out on my little nephews.