Dane Cook's Cult (No, I am not a member)

"Comedian" Dane Cook's HBO "special," "Vicious Circle" was on last night, so I decided to give it a look. I've heard a lot of good things about the "comedian," but have never seen any of his stand-up routines. The "special" was one hour and forty-five minutes long.

What can I say? I was non-biased going into the "special," for the simple fact that I had never seen him perform before. I have nothing against the guy personally. He seems like a decent human being. I was quite impressed with the number of fans that showed up this evening, but noticed many of them seemed to be in the 16-19 age range and there seemed to be many more females than males attending the show.

Okay, enough with the introductory fluff. To put it mildly- Dane Cook isn't funny. I think I made a couple noises resembling laughs within those very long 105 minutes. "Gone With the Wind" seemed to go by quicker than this. I couldn't tell if one of those noises was a cough or a laugh. The other one was pretty obvious, so, count them, 1+ laughs in 105 minutes of action! That's not a good ratio for Mr. Cook, or anybody, as far as that goes.

Yeah, some Cook Cult Members might state that I'm just jealous of the guy and blah blah blah. I'm sorry, but no. If that was the case, why wouldn't I be this way toward all comedians? Movie stars? Musicians? Athletes? So, no, but your logic on that one is thin, to be nice.

He didn't have any good material. Dane Cook's routine was reminiscent of some times I spent with stoned out friends and stories they'd drone on for hours about. No, the stories weren't funny. They were interesting at first, but got to be dull and drab rather quickly. That's what Cook reminds me of. He had some decent material at first, but then he'd beat the idea down until it laid in a casket in a cemetery and was pronounced dead. Cook had problems finishing the joke. Many times, he could've brought a joke to a halt after one or two lines, but no, he didn't know how to end it. If he were to rewrite The Bible, it'd have to be separated into sixteen different volumes of equal length! He also laughed too much at his own jokes, even before the joke was finished. I'm sorry, but that can often times ruin the joke. He just didn't have any interesting original material. He told what seemed to be a never-ending story about lying and how it's contagious. When you say one lie, you have to keep lying, in order to keep that original lie safe and secure. So, he talked about a lie of how he got into a car accident, which prevented him from going to a party. Then, he went into detail about what happened during the accident and what condition the car was in, and blah blah blah, let's end it already! But, did it end there? No, of course not. Let's then go over the scenario if and when the guy knew he was lying. The guy went to your place, saw you on the couch watching television, but no, he has a hologram set up, so it looks like he's on the couch watching television, to keep burglars away! I'm just giving you all the shortened version. He spoke of crying and how we all need a good cry sometimes. He gave a long-winded demonstration of what this cry is like. He pretended to cry, cry, and cry. All I heard on my television set for about five minutes went something like this, "Waaaaaaaah! Waaaaaah! Waaahaaaaaa!" Yes, it was lovely and FUNNY! Oh, boy, was it funny... He got religious momentarily and talked about his run-in with an atheist. It was funny at first. He talked about how he always says, "God bless you" when somebody sneezes and when he said that one time, the man who sneezed said, "I'm an atheist." Cook wanted to respond with, "Well, what am I supposed to say, there's no after-life?" Right there is when he should've ended the joke. But, no, he went on and on like one of my old stoner friends, with really no point, message, or moral to the story. The stories were interesting for the first minute or so, but then began to make my eyes heavy. Cook is also probably the most random "comedian" I've ever witnessed. Cook's performance puts the show "Seinfeld" to shame with his randomness. As George Costanza said to Jerry about a show idea, "It's a show about nothing!" That's what Dane Cook's performance was about, only lacking the humor of "Seinfeld."

I'll give the guy one thing. He has a lot of energy. I'm not sure how he jumps or bounces around like that for 105 minutes, but with that kind of energy, he could be a rock singer or an aerobics instructor. Perhaps he should be a motivational speaker somewhere. Maybe, he'll do all right in the movie business. Who knows?

If you find a man running around for 105 minutes, yelling profanities, laughing at his own jokes, and making "Gone With the Wind" seem short in comparison to one joke of his funny, then by all means, enjoy his comedy. Perhaps his show being called "Vicious Circle" was an inside joke, because the circle the hand made on the clock for an hour and forty-five minutes was very vicious during his performance indeed.