Kathy Griffin Tells All in Her New Book, "Official Book Club Selection" (But She Told Even All-er at the Un-Cabaret)
Submitted by greg on Fri, 09/11/2009 - 23:10
Before she won any Emmys, Kathy was one of the earliest, funniest and most daring members of Un-Cabaret, the revolutionary band of truth-telling, over-sharing, free-wheeling comedians who launched the 'alternative comedy' movement in Los Angeles in the 1990s. (Other OGs include Taylor Negron, Judy Toll, Andy Kindler, Dana Gould, Julia Sweeney, Bobcat Goldthwait, Merrill Markoe, Bob Odenkirk, David Cross, Laura Kightlinger, Janeane Garofalo, Margaret Cho and ringleader Beth Lapides.)
They told all about their career traumas, financial disasters, spiritual crises, family dysfunction and bleeding hearts. As you'll hear in this clip, Kathy's specialty was sex. Graphic, breathtakingly honest, take-no-prisoners-including-yourself sex.
WARNING: This clip contains dirty words and even more disturbing ideas.
This performance, "Pillow Talk", is from Un-Cabaret's first CD "Freak Weather Feels Different".
It is now out of print, but you can download the whole album and get other episodes of the Un-Cabaret podcast here and hear other great performances on the other Un-Cabaret compilation CDs.
Celebrity Stories & Close Encounters (Episode #1: Patton Oswalt vs. Elizabeth Taylor)
Submitted by greg on Thu, 08/27/2009 - 19:36
Patton Oswalt's new movie, "Big Fan", is all about celebrity and fandom gone wrong.
Celebrity stories are always of inherent interest to an audience. In fact, when I was producing Beth's daily radio show, a big-time radio consultant told us that there are only 4 things people care about: celebrity, sex/love, work and money. We resist defining things that narrowly, but he isn't all wrong.
We admit, there has been a good amount of high-quality name-dropping at the Un-Cabaret. Among Patton's many great stand up storytelling performances is this one about his Hollywood encounter with Elizabeth Taylor:
Hear more Patton performances on the Un-Cabaret compilation CDs, "The Un & Only" and "the Good, the Bad and the Drugly" and on several episodes of the Un-Cabaret podcast on audible.com (including one episode called "Close Encounters" that's all about celebrity encounters). You can also see free video detailing the anatomy of a great standup performance by Patton about falling in love - another one of the 'only 4 things people are interested in'.
