Paulo Seabra

I can't say I've ever been a fan of biographies, and biographies of comedians even less so. But being a huge fan of Norm Macdonald compelled me to read this one. Maybe I should have read it way before, certainly before the man died, but what's done is done, I suppose. Regardless, I knew I had to read it, and the final impulse for that was reading a random comment somewhere that consisted of a specific paragraph from the book. I say comment, but it was more of a quote, really... I'll get to that shortly, but for now, what is the book like? Well, first of all it's funny, you can't expect anything less from Norm, but it's also kinda sad, what with him channeling his inner Rodney Dangerfield and pouring on and on about all the losses in his life. Then again, you never know what's true and what ain't, because after all, Based on a True Story ends up being more like a title than a description. What you do get instead is an image, true or false, of a wande...

Seriously, I really didn't... It would appear that Norm, in typical Norm fashion, kept his illness very well-hidden, perhaps to avoid all those common platitudes that at best are vain, and at worst they're just dark voids where comedy goes to die. In a way it's almost as if he made his own death into a joke, what with his weird style of saying the most wicked things in such a blunt way that people couldn't help but laugh as a way to release the tension. I have heard it said, and wish I had been the one to come up with it, that Norm was the comedian that, not only willingly confronted the elephant in the room, but he actively hunted it down. Indeed, Norm's comedy style was often as blunt and as brash as an elephant rifle, and yet he was often at times so subtle you needed some deep soul-searching and a degree from the University of Science in order to understand it. In another saying that I also wish I had been the one to come up with, it was almost as if Norm was do...

I kinda got through college by watching a ton of british panel shows. I think it all started with the weird wisdom of QI, and then I discovered the fables and fibs of Would I Lie To You, and lastly the topical yet random and somewhat timeless tirades of 8 Out of 10 Cats. Or maybe it didn't happen quite in this order, maybe I am misremembering some things that actually happened concurrently, but suffice it to say that I ended up watching more hours of british television than television from my own country. Soon enough I found myself understanding some current events and quite a few details of british culture, as well as noticing all these words that are used rather differently in american english, and of course most importantly, I found a ton of comedians I began to admire... And I mean, college for me wasn't necessarily terrible, but there were a few bad days here and there, and it was in the apex of my worst days there that I discovered 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, and...

Lester “Beetlejuice” Green is categorically one of the best comedians in the world, as far as I'm concerned he's right up there with Rodney Dangerfield and Norm Macdonald. And that's not a joke, I'm not a funny guy, unlike Beetlejuice. Once in a blue moon I like to think I manage to come up with a funny thing or two, sure, who doesn't? But Beetle is constantly firing on all cylinders, when he's on a roll he simply will not stop, even to point where you absolutely have to rewatch his little sets more than once to get the full extent of his comedy genius. The way his mind work is just fascinating, random to the point of being kinda surreal and all too impossible to predict. And if a proper joke is based on the element of surprise, then you simply can't ask for a better comedian. In all these things, Beetle is a master. He's way, way funnier than a ton of mainstream comedians who, though hard they try, they can't avoid being anything but generic, predic...

Wow, where to even begin with this one?... I was just watching some random clips of Beetlejuice when I happened to stumble upon this legendary day of old. What first got my attention was Shirley Phelps' demonic grin on the thumbnail picture there, a grin I had definitely seen before, but then I noticed Megan Phelps, now Phelps-Roper, making a distinct gesture of teenage embarrassment, and her sister Grace beside her with a look of strange distrust. What I'm trying to say here is that even the thumbnail of the video is a work of art... So I clicked on it, I skipped ahead to watch a random bit and I immediately knew I had to watch the whole thing from beginning to end. And since I first saw it, which was a few days ago now, I've been rewatching it nonstop, both in full or in random bits. So yeah, it's been a fun, and very controversial, couple of days. In case you haven't seen it or know nothing about it, it's a sort of parody of Hollywood Squares, a gameshow w...

What a crowd, what a crowd! I tell ya, I'm alright now but last blog post I was in a rough shape, ya know... After the last blog post I wrote, Google recommended me – Hey, would you like to share this to all of your friend?... That's the story of mine life, I get no respect, no respect at all! And my wife, she ain't no prize neither. When we got married she had me take our wedding picture, that way I wouldn't be in it! Are you kiddin', I know I'm ugly. The other day I went for a prostate exam and the doctor shoved his fingers in my mouth!... And health, oh, that's another problem. I told my psychiatrist – Doc, I'm sad, I'm ugly, my wife hates me and I get no respect at all! And he went – Good, at least we know you're not crazy... But it's not all bad, Johnny, you gotta take the good with the bad, you know, and at least I get a little more respect than one man, and that man is Rodney Dangerfield. Rodney Dangerfield was known as the comedian wi...