AltCom 2009 Concludes Tonight with The Onion at The Armory

Even though he affected the classic indifferent-to-everything hipster demeanor, Allen’s performance could have done with some better timing and presentation. Still, many of his observations were spot-on: people who say “I’m teaching myself piano” actually mean “I can’t believe I bought a piano”; vegans are the only people nobody feels bad about making fun of; and haunted houses are way too easy to spot—he’d like there to be a haunted lesbian bookstore sometime, perhaps visited by the ghost of Eleanor Roosevelt.

Allen also had an amusing take on our imaginations in everyday situations, wondering why we always come up with a worst-case scenario (killing strangers’ children to teach them a lesson about being rude, say) rather than a best-case one. Why don’t we ever imagine a stranger in line in the grocery store inviting us to a rooftop party full of supermodels, live deer, and profiteroles? To wrap up, Allen proposed that being drunk should make us think we’re good at more unusual (and less dangerous) things. Rather than drunk dialing exes or contracting gonorrhea, we might try, say, origami. Waking up the next morning, we’ll wonder “Who made all these cranes?”

Jamie Kilstein took on more political topics, mocking those who think racism is over because of Barack Obama’s election, and even theorizing that Obama is “America’s black friend” who enables us to make racist comments by his very existence. Kilstein's delivery was confident yet spastic and, appropriately, outraged. In discussing the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for gays in the military, he cited a Navy officer who worried that acknowledging homosexuality could lead to more rape. Stressing that women are the main victims of rape in the military, Kilstein wondered, very simply, why not just have a “No rape policy” rather than a “No telling anyone you’re gay” policy? Makes sense to us.

Kilstein also attacked our society’s newfound desire to “do things without actually doing them,” citing social media "friendships" and Wii Sports as a prime example of this phenomenon. It “doesn’t even look fun,” Kilstein asserts of Wii Sports, and theorizes that it's only a matter of time before we come up with “Wii Fuck.” We’ll just let you imagine how that might work.

After the boys loosened up the audience with their antics, the incomparable Janeane Garofalo came on stage. Her presence invigorated the audience, and her set—which didn’t feel like a set at all—revealed part of the difference between amateur and professional comedians. With less-experienced openers, you can almost see the written setlist churning in their brains as they recall exactly what they’re supposed to say and exactly how they’re supposed to say it: The audience is the mirror they’ve practiced in front of, something they’re not quite ready to connect with. We've definitely seen newer comedians completely mess up a joke by telling words in the wrong order, and apologize for their mistake rather than turn it into something funny in its own right.

More experienced comedians like Garofalo, who’ve become more “personalities” than performers (like http://bostonist.com/2008/05/11/altcom_2008_the.php Patton Oswalt, who we saw last year), essentially just have a hilarious conversation with the audience, seeming to share actual hilarious thoughts they’re having on the spot rather than spouting a set list of written lines. Certainly there are professional comedians who operate on more of a traditional basis, but Garofalo’s set came off as a stream-of-consciousness conversation with the audience, a welcome type of engagement that was not as present with the previous performers. At some point, it’s the personality, not the pun, that wins out—and that’s part of why not everyone can be come a successful comic.

Garofalo wore full-body Spanx (a terrifying concept), a bright yellow shirt, and giant red Puma boots that “hide my withered leg,” according to the comedian. She narrated the saga of enduring a 22-hour flight from Australia to the U.S. in said full-body Spanx; we can’t go into detail here, but suffice to say that putting hand sanitizer in your Spanx does not, apparently, have the same effect as a good ol’ shower. Shocking.

Recently voted Ignorant Twit of the Week by some conservative blog, Garofalo repeated the anti-teabagging screed that won her said award, but otherwise kept more to the personal than the political. In the midst of telling stories about teabagging and her travels (not necessarily related), she went on a variety of tangents, discussing Duffy’s near-dwarfness and the absurdity of customs forms, which ask drug addicts and spies to disclose themselves voluntarily. Garofalo wondered how successful espionage experts could succeed in obtaining government secrets, yet be undone by checking a box. The mysterious power of paper.

Much of the show dealt with Garofalo's past, which she emphasizes was totally problem-free—“my parents did an excellent job parenting”—but consisted largely of trying to “say no to life.” First she tried joining the Catholic Youth Organization, then overeating, and finally heavy drinking. Now clean, anti-depressants are Garfalo's legal drug of choice: she's happy "Like I used to be, but I used to drink!"

She also voiced her personal indifference to marriage and children, a sentiment this Bostonist is always relieved to see voiced in a public forum. Marriage and parenthood aren’t prerequisites for humanity, they’re choices individual people have the right to make, and nobody should harass others for choosing differently. Garofalo also discussed the Jon and Kate Plus 8 phenomenon, including the couple's choice not to eliminate any of of the many babies that resulted from fertility treatments because that “wasn’t god’s plan.” As Garofalo smartly points out, “If we’re gonna go with God’s plan, he didn’t want you to have kids… If you’re gonna go with science, go with science all the way,” she urged.

At the end of her set, Garofalo criticized the wearing of flip-flops (a topic dear to this shoe-eschewing Bostonist's heart), saying “The rapture’s gonna come, you’ll have to run, and you’re gonna lose at least one flip-flop.” This ignores the question of how Garofalo herself would run in those 10-pound red boots, but we’ll let it pass. Overall, Garofalo’s performance was funny, intimate, and occasionally thought-provoking as well. AltCom 2009 got off to a great start on Friday and will surely get better as onions are added tonight. You'll certainly cry—with laughter.