Kinda like a more lively Steven Wright.

Meh, Cem has become too much of a screamer for me. I like Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert's approach much better.

I've been keenly awaiting for this documentary about Dr. Steven Greer and the movement for UFO/new energy disclosure to come out. Now that I've seen it, I have also been seeing a lot of schoolboy/adolescent-grade bashing of this film.

I wonder if this is a "knee-jerk" reaction to such a controversial topic. Just these two issues below (of the several issues discussed in the film), cannot be so quickly dismissed as "ufo nonsense".

1. The witness testimonies (on video) from over-100 high-ranking government and military officials, pilots, and scientists.
2. The 6-inch Atacama body has not been proven to be human (even though Huffington Post was quick to state that's all it was). Watch the film, it goes in to detail about the findings made at Standford University.

*promote Steven

Vimeo description:

Animated by Austin illustrator Divya Srinivasan, this animated video depicts three sleepy ghost kids following a heterochromic fox through a snowy twilight. When the group discovers an impromptu critter disco in a forest clearing, the spirits and strays dance in harmony until a cranky babushka bemoans the noise and breaks up the party. Thus, the spectral youths return to the astral plane... but not without a final farewell to their new found animal friends.

Divya Srinivasan has previously created animated videos for Spoon ("Everything Hits at Once"), They Might Be Giants, The Sundance Channel and Wonder Showzen, and worked on Richard Linklater's "Waking Life" feature film. Divya's illustration portfolio includes numerous pieces for the New Yorker magazine, as well as the album artwork for Sufjan Stevens' Illinois and This American Life's "Stories of Hope and Fear" collection.

"I Saw The Bright Shinies" is from The Octopus Project's album "Hello, Avalanche," released in 2007 on Peek-A-Boo Records. The "Bright Shinies" video appears on the "Golden Beds" enhanced CD EP released in 2009 on Peek-A-Boo Records.

peekaboorecords.com/octopusproject
theoctopusproject.com
myspace.com/theoctopusproject
pupae.com/portfolio

*length=4:10

I dunno, I respect your opinion but disagree almost entirely. It's pretty easy to delineate what's original in stand-up comedy. These are all his own jokes, so they're original. A lack of emotion in delivery isn't the exclusive domain of Wright, so any perceived similarity there isn't really relevant. No one else in the reddit thread where I found this video made the same association. There was one comment comparing him to Anthony Jeselnik, though, which was just as weird to see. Dunno why people insist on having to compare every comic to every other one. Regardless, I think Chris here would take it as a compliment to be seen as in the same vein as Steven Wright.

Sorry to hear that your experience of comedy is so limited that any slight resemblance of one comic to another prevents you from appreciating them.

Steven Wright wasn't the first deadpan one liner either!

Steven Wright called - he wants his schtick back.

While I agree that he is a physical comedian, I would argue that there's nothing wrong with that as a device to enhance his performance. In the same way Steven Wright uses a monotone voice and lackluster delivery to enhance his mundane observations (which are hilarious in my opinion), or the oft-imitated cadence of Dave Attell, Dane found a voice. That's not new in comedy ("I get no respect" - Rodney Dangerfield).

Do me (and yourself) a favor and seek out a Dane track that you've never heard (audio only) and try to listen to it without cracking a smile. Don't fight cracking a smile, but see if you can last a whole track without doing so. Maybe try a couple. That's the test I take whenever I think I'm judging a comedian too hard based on my perception that could influenced by external factors.

Note: It's a fact that Bill Engvall is NOT funny. I've listened to an entire album and did not crack a smile...he does NOT pass the test

Violence, death and danger raises the stakes of a narrative and triggers the production of adrenaline in the minds of the viewer. Our ancient ancestors got the same rush by outrunning a grizzly bear. Luckily, we can tap into this brain narcotic with much less risk.

There are films that do seem to pointlessly revel in gore and suffering, most notably Saw 1-26, but Quentin certainly isn't guilty of this kind of torture porn. Steven Spielberg killed at least as many Nazis in Raiders of the Lost Ark as Quentin killed racist confederates in Django, but Spielberg never gets criticized for it. The violence in both films serve the dual purposes of making the bad guys really bad, and making the catharsis of revenge in the end really good.

Violence in media is a reflection of violence in culture, not the other way around. Quentin didn't dream up slavery, lynchings, torture, mutilation and the other types of racial violence in his film. That stuff really happened.

And to Spike Lee: Django blowing racists to hell with TNT is how Tarrentino deals with race in cinema. Mookie tossing a garbage can through the front window of Sal's pizzaria is how you deal with race in cinema. Both are great films with the same perspective on race done in completely different styles. Get over yourself. If you want to criticize a film about race directed by a white guy, do 'Crash', that movie was a patronizing pile of shit.

My mom thinks me using facts is racist. Poor people tend to be black. Poor people tend to commit crimes. White people tend to move away from black neighborhoods. I suppose I should have spent less time studying political behavior in my state and more time making jokes.

"What's the difference between a black man and a white man?" "A job." - From the woman who calls me a racist for saying most violent crime in the US is black on black crime.

The biggest issue with the mainstream and statistics is that unless it plays into their stereotypes of behavior, they don't care. And when it does, they don't really care about the real cause.

From Wiki: (Violent Crime, UK)

"Includes all violence against the person, sexual offences, and robbery as violent crime.[8]
Rates of violent crime are in the UK are recorded by the British Crime Survey. The Home Office Statistical Bulletin on "Crime in England and Wales" summarizes the findings of this survey. For the 2010/2011 report,[9] the statistics show that violent crime continues a general downward trend observed over the last few decades as shown in the graph.
"The 2010/11 BCS showed overall violence was down 47 per cent on the level seen at its peak in 1995; representing nearly two million fewer violent offences per year."[citation needed]
Regarding murder, "increasing levels of homicide (at around 2% to 3% per year) [have been observed] from the 1960s through to the end of the twentieth century". Recently the murder rate has declined, "a fall of 19 per cent in homicides since 2001/02", as measured by The Homicide Index.
By contrast, there is a widespread belief that violent crime is on the rise, due largely to a mass media which disproportionately reports violent crime. This phenomenon is described by Steven Pinker in The Better Angels of Our Nature."

(Violent Crime, US)

"The United States Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) counts five categories of crime as violent crimes: murder, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault. It should be noted that these crimes are taken from two separate reports, the Uniform Crime Report (UCR) and the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), and that these do not look at exactly the same crimes. The UCR measures crimes reported to police, and looks at Aggravated assault, forcible rape, murder, and robbery. The NCVS measures crimes reported by households surveyed by the United States Census Bureau, and looks at assault, rape, and robbery. According to BJS figures, the rate of violent crime victimization in the United States declined by more than two thirds between the years 1994 and 2009.[10] 7.9% of sentenced prisoners in federal prisons on September 30, 2009 were in for violent crimes.[11] 52.4% of sentenced prisoners in state prisons at yearend 2008 were in for violent crimes.[11] 21.6% of convicted inmates in jails in 2002 (latest available data by type of offense) were in for violent crimes.[12]"



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If you didn't want to read that babble, quick and simple: they're one and the same. From my understanding, both countries use the Type 1 list: a crime against a person in which injury or death may occur. In some cases, just because no one was hurt, doesn't mean it wasn't a violent crime.

Which brings up the other point to be made. Is the reporting of the crimes uniform? Do the Brits report EVERYTHING, as opposed to what's somewhat routine here in the states where crimes often go unreported, even when the police show up? Domestic violence only exists if one person files charges. The victim could be bruised, bleeding, broken bones etc, but if they're not willing to file a charge, no crime occurred.

Or, more so, do street brawls get reported more often in the UK? If I punch some dude, does that go onto a record somewhere where as in the states, I've been in many fights where even if the police broke it up, no reports were ever filed.

All of this is useful information, but so far the data is pretty superficial. The comment the video makes about "put on your boots and go find out" (paraphrased) is pretty much the only solution I can think of. Then again, it's the same solution that people have been chanting for for generations and have yet to see the high and mighty Elite do it.

If you read quotes from Steven Wright and Emo Philips, it is amazing how similar their humor is, and yet their delivery is so exact opposite.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'jon stewart, autism, jokes, joke, Night of too many Stars' to 'chris rock, steven wright, autism, jokes, joke, Night of too many Stars' - edited by xxovercastxx

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Steven-Wright-doing-a-longer-than-usual-act

Steven Wright - One Liners has been added as a related post - related requested by kulpims on that post.