Greatest Standup Comedians of All Time

I love comedy. If you can tell me a good story or make me laugh, I'll sit at your feet and beg for more. I have the utmost respect for anyone who can get on a stage and intentionally be funny because it just ain't easy.

12. Lenny Bruce - I admit, he was before my time, but he is the father of shock comedy and without him we never would've had such greats as Richard Pryor or Sam Kinison. Prior to this comedy consisted of knock-knock jokes and Bruce took an unflinching look at the ugly side of life - racism, hatred.

11. Bill Cosby - If you haven't seen his movie entitled, Himself, you're missing out.

10. Richard Pryor - This man set the world on its ear with his third album, That Nig***s Crazy and his popularity continued to grow with each successive album release. He was one of the writers on Blazing Saddles, Car Wash and numerous television shows.

9. Carol Burnett - One of my earliest memories was watching the Carol Burnett show in the early seventies. She was ahead of her time in that she knew her worth and retained creative control of her show in an era when it was unheard of.

8. Roseanne Barr - Love her or hate her - this woman kicks ass. She knew her value to the entertainment world and she retained control of her show and called all the shots.

7. Chris Farley - His timing was spot on - its too bad that he couldn't see himself as we saw him.

6. Joan Rivers - She was one of the first female comics, I believe Moms Mabley and Phyllis Diller are the only ones before her, and she is utterly hilarious. The first comic to openly talk about sex and issues that are important to women, she paved the way for those who came after.

5. Phyllis Diller - The first female comic to really make a name for herself. I remember seeing her on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and she constantly had him blushing.

4. Bob Hope - I grew up on his movies, watched his specials and was constantly amazed by him. He was the comedian who could stand in front of presidents and heads of state and make fun of them without recourse. He gave thousands of hours of his life to entertain the troops all over the world and this country owes him a debt of gratitude for his service.

3 . George Carlin - What can I say about him? He was a genuis and I was lucky to see him do a trial run of what would become his last HBO Special - It's bad for ya.

2. Red Skelton - Most of you are going...who? He was one of the funniest men and he was known as America's Clown. He appeared on several shows with Lucille Ball and he was a master of physical comedy. Go to his website and listen to his Guzzler's Gin piece and experience America as it was in the 50's.

1. Sam Kinison - I suppose some feel that Carlin or Pryor belong here but I just adored Kinison. He was sharp, funny, intelligent and utterly, completely fearless. I saw him perform once and it was an experience like no other. People make a big deal about Dane Cook filling stadiums and Kinison was doing it when Cook was still playing with G.I. Joe. He was a legend.

Others that I adore, Ellen Degeneres, Lewis Black, Katt Williams, D.L. Hugley, Woody Allen (in his early days), Andy Kaufmann, Bill Hicks, Johnathon Winters, Dom DeLuise, Red Foxx, Dennis O'Leary, Stephen Wright, Don Rickles, Bob Newhart - I could go on for days.

Who are some of your favorites?

More Amazon Hijinks

A friend set me this link and I'm not happy. What is it with Amazon that they just can't come out and say what they mean? They always wait until an issue turns into a PR nightmare and they are exposed as the 800lb bully in the playground.

Yeah, I think I'll be shaking loose of my Kindle and switching to a new team.

http://www.geardiary.com/2009/06/19/kindles-drm-rears-its-ugly-head-and-it-is-ugly/

Email, Email and even MORE email

Do you ever feel like Microsoft Outlook owns your soul? Do you hear that little 'ding' of arriving mail then close your eyes while animal-like whimpering souls escape from your mouth?

Yeah, me too.

I spent all of yesterday answering email. No writing, no promotion, no nothing - just email. About ten hours worth. It was truly staggering. Of course, one of the reasons why I had a ton o' email was because I have a nasty tendency to put things off when I'm writing. I don't want to take the time to answer it because work must be done. Then I get cranky when I have to take an entire day to do all the email I'd neglected.

When I was in high school my home ec teacher - what the heck was her name? - said to avoid spending your Saturday cleaning you should take ten minutes a day to straighten up. I think I need to use that strategy to keep my email in line.

Then again, I probably won't. :)

Check out...

my thoughts on Romancelandia.

OW!

You know its going to be a rough day when you have a fat lip before 8am.

Stopped at my neighbors on the way to the grocery store. I went to pet the dog and Butch (said dog) jumped up and hit me full force in the mouth. Busted my lip open, blood everywhere. Mark (owner of said dog) had to haul me in his house and doctor me.

My lip is So Big...

(this is where you say, "how big is it?")

I have to watch walking through doorways so it doesn't get caught in the door.

OW

Hmm...

I'm watching the final show of The Biggest Loser and eating a Twinkie. Is that wrong?

Reinventing Jane Porter

You know it's going to be one of those days...

Messy!

In my never-ending quest for a neat house, I threw myself into cleaning the garage yesterday. My method of cleaning is this - I put everything where I want it then I end up with this weird pile o' crap that I'm never quite sure what to do with. My solution has been to throw it in a box and toss it in the garage for the moment.

Now, years later, my garage is a mess. Surprise - bet you didn't see that coming.

Amvets is coming next Tuesday so I'm in a mad scramble to empty the garage and make a huge donation to charity. Literally, I have an entire kitchen stored out there somewhere and I'm sure someone can use it.

So in my frenzy I came across a box of stuff from past boyfriends and other people that I consider(ed) important in my life. I went through the box and spent my time shaking my head and trying to remember if I'd had a head injury when I dumped all that stuff in there. Why did I keep all of it?

My immediate answer is that it hurt too much to look at it so I threw it into a box to deal with when I wasn't so pissed off. The funny thing was I dumped him for screwing around on me which begs the question a second time - why did I keep this stuff again?

I sifted through the box and either tossed it or put it in the charity box. I did fish out a beautiful set of gold pens he'd given me - hey, I'm not stupid! Quality pens cost mucho dollars, but that was it. My garage would be much cleaner if I'd done that with everything else instead of letting it pile up.

Do you keep the remnants of past relationships hanging around in your house??

Belly Button Lint...

I have been so frustrated lately. I have contracts to fulfill - books to write - and everything I've tried to put on paper is absolute crap. Yeah - in general writers believe everything is crap until we hit the end of the book. Once we write The End we're pretty sure we've written the Next Great American Novel.

Until then - the writing process just sucks. :)

I have some really fun projects on deck:
Rites of Spring, the sequel to Winter's Daughter
Tactical _____, the next SWAT story
Santo's story from the Jane Porter series...
A cool Urban Fantasy with no title...
But I'm having a hell of a time writing them. I've started Rites - the Prologue is is done and I've written three chapters...but let me clarify - I've written the first chapter three times...and thrown them all out.

I keep telling myself that it just needs more time to percolate. I've found that some books just flow from my brain - the Jane Porter books - and others need to be wrenched from my soul (Winter's Daughter). I guess this one will need to extracted with force.

Now where did I put the aspirin... :)