Boston Comedy Festival Finals (with Lewis Black! woo!)
Saturday, October 13, 8:15 p.m., Cutler Majestic Theatre, $45-$65 [Tickets]

Annnnnnd the second round of the funnyfest semi-finals was another all-male show about how hard women are to deal with. Are these guys winning because they're funny or because comedy is a male-dominated profession? We'd say it might be a combo of both--most of the semifinalists drew some laughs, but we do wish there had been a broader perspective on what's funny. Surely something beyond calling women crazy can be amusing. Anyway, after the jump we summarize the round 2 semi-finalists and reveal the whole crew you'll see at the finals (finally!) tomorrow night.

Tom Simmons took the over-the-line approach to comedy, suggesting a "Talk 'em into it" suicide hotline to turn murder-suicides and school shootings into mere suicides. Operators would suggest spreading tasty substances (like peanut butter!) on the barrel of the gun to encourage the would-be murderers to focus on themselves. Simmons also rejected No Child Left Behind, saying that some kids do need to be left behind--otherwise who would manage the all-night drive thrus? And if you're a terrorist looking for an easy way to kill off some Americans, Simmons has your answer: hand out poisoned chicken samples at a local mall. Nothing's funnier than death and failure...

...except maybe pedophilia. HaHA! David Powell was asked by some neighbors to baby-sit their children. He hadn't been around kids much since becoming an adult, so he wanted to make sure he wasn't a pedophile. Turns out he's not, fortunately, but this is something that parents might want to check before adding people to the "potential baby-sitters" list. Powell questions a lot of things, such as the "grading" system for bra sizes ("You got a D? I don't think so!"), as well as the logic of flying Virgin Atlantic airlines. He'd prefer a slutty plane that he knows will take him all the way--virgins only go down on you, y'know.

Paul D'Angelo wants women to stop claiming that they want an honest man--all that gets you is a man who admits that you do look fat in that, and he'd rather run the Boston marathon with a rock in his shoe than go shopping with you during a Pats game. Better to just deal with the lies, ladies. D'Angelo also wonders about kids these days: how can they successfully play computer games before being potty-trained? Games involve dragging icons across the screen, so the kids should be able to drag their asses to the bathroom when they have to go. It's also not clear to D'Angelo why violence gets blamed on music, since he listened to music as a kid but never shot the sheriff--or the deputy. Chew on that for a minute, people.

Levi MacDougall takes the idea that humor stems from the unexpected to whole new levels. His act consists largely of involved setups that never come to fruition--or come to the wrong fruition--which creates a strange and uncomfortable, yet not entirely unpleasant, type of comedy. It's sort of like trying a new food you've never tasted before and being uncertain whether you like it or not. Choice bits included an exchange with a woman on a bus holding an "It's a Girl!" balloon that ended in a frustrated MacDougall popping the balloon because it was neither a girl nor a baby, as well as some major build-up for "the beginning of a backflip" that he didn't actually bother to complete--after all, the rest of a backflip is just "filler." Also, he's Canadian. That in itself is hilarious.

Robert Mac is the pile-on funny guy who keeps going in a direction--or changing directions--even after you're sure you know what he's going to say, or that he's run out of things to say. He opened his act lamenting the rectangle of content and characters that distracts us from real life--"Stupid books," he then said. "Save a tree, watch TV" Mac's his motto, and his act progresses as rapidly and seemingly randomly as a TV commercial. Fortunately, it all ties together in the end. Most of the time. Mac is also from Arizona, and moved away for religious reasons, those reasons being mostly "Jesus Christ, it's hot." Amen.

Speaking of the good Lord, Taylor Connelly is going to buy Lord & Taylor and reopen it as Jesus & Me. And the cleverness doesn't end there--Connelly has the ultimate response to out-of-towners who ask him if he pahks his cah in Hahvahd yahd: "Nah, but I muhdah strangahs." So Boston! Connelly doesn't believe that Jesus walked on water; it was actually ice, but the disciples were good at embellishment. And if you've ever felt bored while waiting in line at an amusement park, Connelly's got the solution for you! Parks should hire people to walk around with guns and demand money from patrons waiting in line. The twist is, the gun takes a picture of your reaction. You can buy the picture for a low low price from the park. You're entertained and the park gets even more profit--everybody wins! Except maybe Jesus, who still can't get that water-walking thing quite right. Get with it, Lord.

Tommy Savitt can save your marriage. By sleeping with your wife. Because after cheating on you with him, she'll never cheat again. Savitt's act is full of similar testaments to his fine character, including his tendency to call his son "nephew" to dupe new girlfriends, and his upstanding reasons for leaving any women he gets pregnant: "Why should she have to care for both of us?" Still, Savitt has at least one credential to his name: he'll make an excellent lawyer, because he can display authentic empathy for his clients who've been arrested, having been in their shoes himself.

Hannibal Jazzibal Rannibal is going to found the pigeon-kicking Olympics with other PKBPs (pigeon-kicking black people), pigeon-lovers be damned. Pigeon-kicking will be judged by three criteria: distance, number of feathers lost, and the tone and duration of the squawk. Not all of Hannibal's desires involve injuring animals, though; he also aspires to teach children how to use mathematical lingo in dirty jokes, such as his own quip about using pi to determine the circumference of his own... equipment. Combining pussy and hypotenuse in a joke is the next goal. We wish Hannibal luck with this endeavor, as well as with the Olympics.

After that barrel full of laughs, the finalists were announced relatively promptly. Tom Simmons, David Powell, Robert Mac, and Tommy Savitt will be joining yesterday's finalists Myq Kaplan, Victor Varnado, Jim Tews, and Dan Sally for a testosterone-laced evening of manly, manly jokes about womanly weirdnesses. We like everyone's jokes, but we do hope that next year there are at least one or two female finalists--heck, semi-finalists--in the contest.

Comedian images from their respective websites. Bob Marley image from Wikipedia.