David Cross

David Cross: King of the Shitheads

“It never seems to amaze me” (as Bobby Brown once said), how unfathomably unfunny most comedy is these days. One quick glance at the Sunday comics or ten minutes of prime time sitcoms and you start to realize we are living in a world composed primarily of Christian secretaries who have never seen a dick or heard the word “nigger”; a society where simply screaming, “Arrrgh! Mondays!!!” is considered hilarious. That’s petrifying, no? That’s the kind of scary that made The Stepford Wives and Invasion of the Body Snatchers huge hits. What ever happened to a thing called “the laugh”?

What about when we would literally shit our pants to records by Bill Hicks or Redd Foxx or Lenny Bruce or Richard Pryor? What about the laughs from those high school parties you went to when you were 14. Remember? There’d be about seven people in the backyard and after you and your friends smoked enough pot to kill a dog, that one, kind-of-crazy-but-still-smart-guy in the gang is more “on” than he’s ever been and he’s slaying everyone and they’re literally shitting their pants and you’re all bent over, FUCKING DYING, and you have a moment of clarity and you think to yourself “why can’t this be on TV? Why can’t everyone in the world be seeing this. They would fucking DIE.”

That’s when a bald, redneck Jewboy from Atlanta shows up and says “they didn’t literally shit their pants, you asshole,” and you realize all is not lost. A good comic is a reminder that we all feel the same way about the Sunday funnies and sitcoms. That’s why I think people piss their pants so hard at David Cross shows. 50% of it is because the jokes are spot-on and are genuinely, mathematically funny and the other 50% is sheer elation that we were wrong about laughs being banished from earth. He is that guy from the backyard only tonight it’s not 7 people it’s 700. And they’re all shitting their pants.

To see such an outcast (you try growing up a wiseass Yankee Jew in the deep south with nothing but sisters to get your back) talk so much negative shit about people with so much venom, and to have it come out as a heart-warming example that we’re not alone and we all feel ostracized by virgin secretaries, is something only a huge fucking faggot like David Cross could pull off. (Just kidding.) (About the fag part, I mean.)

David Cross was the co-creator and co-star of HBO’s Mr. Show.

Sub Pop will also be releasing a DVD tour diary (by director Lance Bangs) from this same tour in early 2003.

Comedian David Cross channeled his rage and frustration with the state of post-9/11 America into some of the most potent and profane standup of the Bush era. Born April 4, 1964, in Atlanta, Cross briefly attended Massachusetts' Emerson College before dropping out to launch his standup career. After relocating to Los Angeles he was tapped as a writer for the Fox network's fledgling sketch comedy series The Ben Stiller Show, making a handful of cameo appearances onscreen before the program was unceremoniously canceled in 1993. Cross and Ben Stiller Show co-star Bob Odenkirk resurfaced on HBO in 1995 with their own sketch series, the groundbreaking Mr. Show with Bob and David. The program later spawned a feature film, Run Ronnie Run, which languished on the New Line Cinema shelf for years before finally earning a direct-to-DVD release, prompting writers/stars Cross and Odenkirk to disown the finished cut. By this time Cross was already a familiar presence onscreen, earning small roles in films including the 1997 smash Men in Black as well as guest appearances on television sitcoms like NewsRadio, The Drew Carey Show, and Just Shoot Me. He also maintained a thriving standup career, and in 1999 headlined his own HBO comedy special, The Pride Is Back. In 2002, Cross released his first standup CD, Shut Up, You Fucking Baby!, on Sub Pop, earning a Grammy Award nomination for Best Comedy Album. A DVD, Let America Laugh, appeared a year later. Also in 2003 he was cast as flamboyant anal rapist and aspiring actor Tobias Fünke in the much-celebrated Fox sitcom Arrested Development. A second Sub Pop release, It's Not Funny, followed in 2004. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide