Friday:
See if Morgan Murphy and Jen (The Year Of The) Kirkman can get along better than Elizabeth Hasselbeck and Rosie O’Donnell as they welcome Bobcat Goldthwait and Aimee Mann to their “sassier” version of The View*: Morgan Murphy presents Jen Kirkman at the UCB. (9:30pm, $8) Opening Night: The Improvised Musical at iO West proves that all the prestige of the Tony Awards is completely meaningless, if you didn’t already figure as much. (9pm, $10)

Saturday:
Your Saturday night of craziness begins a live taping of The Sound of Young America at the Westside Eclectic, where Mr. Thorn welcomes Brent Weinbach, Rob Thomas (creator of “Veronica Mars”) and the utterly dreamy Eleni Mandell onstage to answer his probing questions. (8pm, $10) Following that, stick around for the Afterparty, where Andy Kindler, Jen (The Year Of The) Kirkman, Jarrett Grode, Wyatt Cenac and Dan Mintz share humorous observations and stories via electronically-projected microphone technology. (9pm, $5) Figure out which doppelgänger of yours is the most evil and send it to The Fake Gallery to witness the tormented horror of Andrew Donnelly, Matt Braunger, Joe Wilson, Johnny Pemberton and others at Calavera Comedy. (8pm, $10) Matt Walsh and Bob Odenkirk join Professor Eric Hoffman for a Comedy by the Numbers “event” at Family Books that proves, once and for all, that reading truly is FUN-damental! (9pm, free!) Scott Adsit (”30 Rock”) downs some of Edmund’s famous absinthe-laced coffee at Edmund Serves Coffee: An Alumni Invitational at the Second City. (9:30pm, $10) iFilm tries to redeem itself after its controversial Powerpoint contest by filming the performances of Andy Ritchie, Danielle Koenig, Jonah Ray, Ryan Flynn and Natasha Leggero at the UCB’s Stand Up Get Down. (10pm, $8)

Sunday:
Seth Morris locks Jeff Garlin in his basement and takes over hosting duties for the Combo Platter at the UCB. (9:30pm, $1) See if Big News at iO West risks putting on a sketch about Chris Benoit, knowing full well that they will have to answer to the rath of the The Iron Sheik. (10pm, $5)

*as if The View could get any sassier

All Hail the Bob
by David Pardue

Andrew Donnelly (host)
Sheng Weng
Jackie Clarke and Julie Klausner
Rep. Richard Martin (R.-Ohio)
Jeff Garlin
Bob Odenkirk
Brody Stevens

A good Death Ray was had by all last night, which – followed by a soupçon of SYNT – is all one needs to satiate one’s Tuesday night. Scott Aukerman’s flyer labeled the evening as “CDR: The Masters,” and though there was no Tiger Woods, there was at least Jeff Garlin and Bob Odenkirk, and that ain’t too shabby.

Some of the highlights included Sheng Weng (who I think was making his first visit to CDR). I was planning to praise his verbal inventions (he had a standout joke about bringing home a girl and being told that “he can do better”), but then Weng started dancing. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a Chinese guy from the Bay Area krumping. It was pretty damn awesome. First Weinbach, now Weng… why/how is San Francisco producing such funky robots? Is M5 Industries involved?

Jackie Clarke and Julie Klausner impressed with a funny but utterly surreal video about their daughters. Anything involving a Carol Channing ventriloquist doll can only be described as surreal.

Representative Richard Martin of Ohio (a scarily accurate portrayal by Paul Gilmartin) took questions from the highly liberal, pot-smoking, abortion-having audience. And Jeff Garlin proved he was a Master by coming out with no material, just some good-natured complaints and some CAA-bound scripts to give away to the appreciative audience. It was like a lite Combo Platter.

Last time I saw Bob Odenkirk was actually a few weeks ago at a Combo Platter. Perhaps he was having a bad day but I remember him describing himself as “A guy who directs shitty movies.” And then at a CDR right before his appearance at “Mess With Texas” with David Cross, he apologized prior to his act, saying that “he’s not really a stand-up comedian, so sorry.”

It’s time for The Bob to admit that he can totally steal a show like the one last night. Bob did three bits that totally scored. One was a cheerful camp councilor who tries to convince all the kids that anything that they like is just like Jesus (”Do you like shoes? Well, Jesus is just like shoes!”). Then he talked about a show he’d like to pitch to the Logo network: “A Gay Guy Wastes Your Time.”

Finally, with the help of an able straight man (picked from the audience, no less), he gave a drop-dead hilarious portrayal of the most out of touch Hollywood producer ever (”American Idol? Doesn’t ring a bell. Do people like it?”). Best of all, I think Bob was cracking himself up as much as he was cracking up the audience.

I’m imagining a world where Bob Odenkirk is not a renaissance man who’s talented at a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff including directing non-shitty movies (Melvin Goes to Dinner, anybody?) but is just a great, great stand-up comic, and it is still a good world indeed.

He is a Master.

You like free, right?

If you do, head over to your favorite electronic mail composer, place the phrase whipitoutcomedy@yahoo.com in the “send to” box, and compose an email stating you are a reader of ‘The Coming’ and you want to be placed on a list to get into tonight’s comedy show at the Hollywood Improv for free! (8pm, 18+) Now, even though entry is free, you will still need to adhere to their policy of purchasing a minimum of 2 “items”, which we’re guessing means beverages, bobby pins and/or foodstuffs. But look at the lineup and tell us it won’t be worth it:

MORGAN MURPHY (from Comedians of Comedy)
J CHRIS NEWBERG (from Jimmy Kimmel Live)
DRAGON BOY SUEDE (from Jimmy Kimmel Live)
JACOB SIROF (from Comedy Central)
SHERRY SIROF (from DotComedy.com)
LOUIS KATZ (from the Carson Daly Show)

The poster for the event — complete with sexy female legs image — is after the jump for you to archive in your collection of LA comedy flyers.

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“Ms. Artemis: Pet Regressor #1 - Cats” by Artemis Pebdani:

“Lee 2: The Reheat” by Dragon Boy Suede:

“Botched Interview” by Sandy Takes A Break:

“Welcome To Our House” by Julie & Jackie:

“1408 (in 2.5 Minutes)” by StudioFred.com:

And finally, our official For The Hell Of It Video, “Buttered Floor Roommate War”:

Nothing takes the sting out of accidentally checking out scantily-clad transvestites on Santa Monica Blvd. — two Santa Monica tranny jokes in two days! — quite like the billboard for The Room perched high above Hollywood, just north of the Fountain and Highland intersection. The comforting, yet haunting, gaze of the ragged man staring down lets you know that everything’s going; there’s a whole lot worse things in life. Namely, the film The Room.

This Thursday, Julie Klausner and Jackie Clarke — the duo behind the aptly-named Julie & Jackie — will welcome The Room’s writer, director, producer, star, caterer, elephant trainer, and scotchgardsman Tommy Wiseau to their OBSESSED show at the UCB. (8pm, $5) While many have seen the film — a cult following has grown around the monthly midnight showings of the film at the Sunset 5 — not many know about the man behind it. For example, from Wiseau’s Wikipedia entry:

Little is known about Wiseau’s early life nor family background. He has an unidentifiable, allegedly Eastern European accent, and it is known that he spent his youth in Europe, but he avoids saying exactly from where he emigrated, except to say that he spent some time in France and New Orleans. He prefers to make it known that he is now an American, and that he speaks three languages. He acknowledges that his surname is similar to the French word oiseau, which means bird in English. He also says that he has always wanted to be an actor. However, it must be pointed out that nothing to date in this skeletal biography can be confirmed including his alleged American nationality nor his date of birth (reportedly October 3, 1968).

We have a feeling that he’s really just from the Midwest. The trailer for The Room is after the jump.

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Tonight, the UCB — 3 out of the 4, anyway — will be celebrating the release of their ASSSSCAT DVD by showing off a few scenes and performing some live(!) comedy. The show starts at 8pm and, since it’s free, there are no reservations available for the event. So how do you get in? By showing your commitment to the UCB and devote a few hours of your life to standing in line.

Lindsay from the UCB recommends coming early, grabbing a drink from a nearby restaurant, and keeping an eye on the line. We recommend not giving in to the warm embrace of alcohol, standing in line the entire time, and passing your pre-show boredom with a few of our over/under betting propositions, which can be found after the jump.

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When we head back into the office after the weekend, we’re prepared for two things: (1) having to pay to park because of LA’s street cleaning racket (which we still say is really just one mad scientist’s social experiment), and (2) our inbox being flooded with requests by our less-chiseled friends for advice on how they can, as they put it, “land a lady”. Mostly we just tell them to head over to Santa Monica Blvd., approach the first person they see in a dress, and ignore their unsightly frontal bulge. But this request was a little more specific:

You know of anyone in LA that could fit the bill — do a bitter/bitchey Hillary Clinton impression for a VO?

If you’re interested, send an email to quantum realitys @ gmail. com, but, you know, first taking out the spaces. It’ll take a couple of hours on Tuesday or Wednesday and, best of all, Obama-backers are welcome, so you don’t have to worry about cheating on your mostly-empty political allegiances! Feel free to use the following video to practice that perfect Hillary blend of showing no emotion yet scaring the hell out of everyone simultaneously:

In what will most likely not be a regularly feature around these parts, we introduce you to our first ever post-weekend press release release(!), this one courtesy the Los Angeles Comedy Festival. Essentially, if you deliver comedy via “standup, sketch, improv, comedy duos, alternative, music comedy, solo shows, video, animation and more”, then you have a chance to get yourself some exposure via sold out shows and Internet video viewing.

The entire press release is after the jump.

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Friday:
Don your footie pajamas, snuggle with your stuffed rabbit Milfie, watch some comedy, and stay for the all-night Nintendo Wii blowout bash with the Overtime Sleep Over* at the Westside Eclectic. (9pm, $5) If you’re sick of comics who rely on their mastery of “words”, head to the UCB and let Billy the Mime silently caress your tickle bone. (9:30, $5) Witness transsexual jugglers and their evil long-lost twins wreck havoc on their snobby family with the improvised soap opera Scandal! at Acme Comedy Theatre. (11pm, $10)

Saturday:
The gang’s all back together — well, the one’s who were invited anyway — and Edmund serves them coffee to spark conversation with (well, this sure is an appropriate title) Edmund Serves Coffee: An Alumni Invitational at Second City. (9:30pm, $10) See if the fries-eys really fixed their technical malfunctions as they welcome Dennis Hemphill and musical guest Manda to this week’s episode of Fries on the Side. (9:30pm, $6) Watch a man’s so-called friends comedically coerce him into suicide during The Roast of Albert Schmussy at the UCB. (midnight, $5)

Sunday:
Before the line starts forming for Monday night’s DVD showcase, check out ASSSSCAT how it’s supposed to be viewed, before they sold out and became “the establishment”. (7:30pm, free!) Josh Fadem welcomes Seth Morris, Harris Wittels, Ian Edwards, and many others to the Ramada Inn to sit on-stage and digest for awhile at the Acid Reflux Hour. (9:30pm, free!) Get all the news you missed while still contemplating the ending to The Sopranos with Big News at the iO West. (10pm, $5)

*Note: Not an actual sleepover.

We don’t mean the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy. Or Larry Seidlin’s reign of autobiographical-storytelling terror in the Florida court system. Or even McSweeney’s bankruptcy scares, although that’s darn good news too. No, what we mean is the excruciating three-year-long wait for Patton Oswalt to release a follow-up to Feelin’ Kinda Patton. Sure, it hasn’t been a Terrence Malick-like hiatus, and we’ve had small bits and pieces of Patton to tide us over, but it hasn’t been pleasant nonetheless.

The new album (and DVD? Whaaa …?) Werewolves and Lollipops, will be released July 10th on Sub Pop Records ($12). If you pre-order now, Sub Pop will not only give you 2 bucks off, but, if you’re lucky, they’ll give you one of their 10 autographed photo booth strips of Patton acting goofy.

To get that appetite of yours all wetted up, which sounds disgusting, head over to Punchline Magazine and listen to their sample preview clip and read their review.