ten red hen

Saw Paul Mooney last night at the Punch Line in Sacramento. His occasional biting improvisations (like, with hecklers) made me want to just be at a dinner table with him and listen to him tear people a new one--he's one of the all-time great greats. I mean, after all, he wrote for Richard Pryor (and pretty much everyone after that). Unfortunately, a lot of his material seemed dated or I'd heard before. He also had a cold, and, at one point, started repeating a bit he had done earlier.

Stand-up seems a quaintly archaic form. Perhaps I'm still in vaudeville/burlesque mode, but it's pretty elemental--someone stands up in front of a crowd and makes them laugh.