This past weekend marked the premiere of Doug Stanhope’s Showtime special No Refunds. We have yet to see it — Showtime isn’t in our budget at the moment — but the premiere got us thinking.

You see, our exposure to Stanhope has been limited. We’ve never seen him do stand-up. We saw bits and pieces of his high profile gigs on The Man Show’s second coming and as host(?) of a Girls Gone Wild special, but both of those experiences failed to impress. On the other hand, we’ve heard him on the Howard Stern show — where he’s a tremendous guest — and read this interview with him over at Punchline Magazine, where he seems like a kewl dood.

But seemingly everywhere we turn, Stanhope’s name is being brought up to us with a fervor usually reserved for Midwestern housewives talking about Oprah. Just this past week, we’ve heard him called a “genius”, a “God”, a “genie-God” and an “apricot”. Sure, that last one was from a street-walker on the corner of Santa Monica and Fairfax, but the other three were from legitimate parties whose opinions we respect.

So tell us, folks. Where do you stand on Stanhope? (See what we did there?) A simple yea or nay in the comments section will suffice, but if you want to wax philosophically for a bit on the topic, feel free. Please, educate us.

David Pardue gives his 2+ cents. Why not take a break from the UCB’s uncomfortable seats? (If you miss it too much, you can cheat on UCB-free week and go to ASSSSCAT on Saturday.) We’re looking for submissions to make this a regular feature, so if you’d like us to post your Comedy Fan’s Dream Week here, please email us at thecomingLA@gmail.com.

Last month I wrote about attending a week of shows at the UCB Theater. Now, in the interest of fairness, it’s time to turn the tables. Lord knows we’re not hurting for comedy venues out here, so I will venture forth to visit five of them within the next week. The UCB can wait its turn.

(By the way, that’s a Borat “NOT!” above, not a Wayne’s World “NOT!” Just to be clear … not.)

Monday: The troika of Leggero, Hill and Bamford make the comedy night at Tiger Lily a great night out no matter when you show up. Add in a second troika of Eddie Pepitone, Jen Kirkman and delicious potstickers and you’ve got me hooked. On Vermont in the lovely hamlet of Los Feliz. (8pm, free)

Tuesday: Huh, so I’m skipping CDR this week? Alrighty then, time to head over to the “Comic-Kaze” night at Tokio, around the corner from Hollywood on Cahuenga. Matt Braunger and David Huntsberger are on the bill. That’s a good bill. (9pm, free)

Wednesday: I know Name of Show at the Westwood Brewing Company has its fans, but I’ve got issues with West LA that I need to work through first. I try to keep to this side of Fairfax, which is why I will end up at Largo taking in Zach Galifianakis’s show. (9pm, $10 plus a hefty food minimum if you like your comedy sitting down.)

Thursday: At iO West, on Hollywood, in Hollywood, there’s the “Quartet” long form improv show featuring Tami Sagher and Stephnie Weir, whose name is a spell-checker’s nightmare, but she’s been in, like, everything. You’ll recognize her. (10pm, $10)

Friday: A friend of mine turned me onto Bang Studio on the ghetto side of Fairfax across from Largo. Their “Big Show” on Friday nights features the new crop of improv students, and an alumni jam. Go armed with improv suggestions and be prepared to be outnumbered by the people on stage. There’s a lot of alumni. (8pm, $7)

Photo: Host Ruby Wendell at Tokio © 2007 m. berru

The final moments of MaxFun Drive 2007 are upon us. The Internet-based pledge drive, supporting The Sound of Young America and the other 62 podcasts that Jesse Thorn is currently putting together, ends tomorrow. So for those of you waiting until the last minute to get your pledge in — we’re not sure why you’d be doing this, other than to be a dick — time is running short.

While the pledge-runner may be far too good-natured and pleasant to brow-beat you into mental submission for your lack of donations, we’re not. We know you listen to the program. We know you enjoy it. And we know that back in the depths of your subconscious you feel guilty for enjoying the fruits of someone else’s hard labor without having a pay a dime. Well, now is the time to free up some of that guilt-space, allowing you to use it for more worthy evils, like kicking that dog or breaking up with that boy/girlfriend with a text message.

So, c’mon. Don’t be a dick.

(Plus, when you do give money, you can get some sweet prizes, which are detailed after the jump.)

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Apparently, offering up sacrificial lamb Paris Hilton to a month-and-a-half behind bars hasn’t entirely gotten us off the hook. If you’re in the city, we recommend looking north.

Also: This is starting to get old, God. Time to spice it up a bit. How about a floodin’? Or a blizzard? Or a good ol’ fashioned plague of locusts? Of course, you could always get inventive and show us your sense of humor.

Photo by m. berru

For our money, there’s no better way to spend a Friday morning than searching through our site hits and seeing what kinds of crazy Google searches are leading people our way. When we came across this one, we just had to share. Apparently, someone has a bone to pick with a man named Ron Huebel:

Whoever got led to our site must have been disappointed when they realized that this was not, in fact, a Ron Huebel Hate Site — and if anyone deserves one, it’s that fucker! — but instead just had a bunch of mentions about this Rob Huebel fella. In case the Ron-hater comes back, we would like to clarify the difference.

Rob Huebel is one of the Human Giants and looks like this:

As far as we can tell, Rob’s not a fucker. Unless he’s on a cell phone.

by David Pardue

Photos by Scott Aukerman and Steve Agee. More photos of CDR can be found here. More You’re Welcome ones, here.

Aziz Ansari was at You’re Welcome Wednesday night to introduce some clips from the upcoming season of Human Giant. If the rest of the show is as good as the clips, then we’re talking almost Mr. Show-level potential here. The rest of Human Giant (Paul Scheer, the Professor, Rob Huebel, Mary Ann) joined Aziz to present these clips on Tuesday at Comedy Death Ray to an audience that was totally eating them up. So, is it inevitable that Human Giant is going to blow up and be huge? Will we never see them again at the likes of You’re Welcome or even CDR?

This week’s comedy shows had me thinking about the give and take relationship between the LA alt-comedy scene and the Industry: they give our alt-comics a few breaks every pilot season, and then they take our alt-comics away from us, sometimes for a night, sometimes forever.

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We here at The Coming don’t have the massive budget; we can’t afford to employ a seedy band of spies — which would be nicknamed The Gloatus, obviously — to infiltrate the comedy landscape and let us know of any shows that may have slipped under our radar. We have to do it ourselves. And frankly, a lot of times, we just don’t have the energy to search out every place in LA where a laugh can be found, especially now, with the start of the baseball season upon us. As such, we thought it might be wise to open up the blog-posting experience to you, the readers.

All we’re looking for is a kind of “Here are the shows to look forward to this week” type of post, highlighting the shows that interest you. The first such article is a few posts below, written by contributing writer David Pardue about some of the shows he plans on seeing this upcoming week at the UCB.

If you’re interested or have any questions, please shoot us at email over at thecomingla@gmail.com. We would recommend contacting us before you start writing, just in case someone has already “claimed” that week. As always, please feel free to send any other questions, tips, male-hating hate mail, or architectural blueprints to the same address. We enjoy any and all kinds of non-emotional electronic transmissions with humans like yourself.

by David Pardue

Am I the only one who wishes they had some sort of VIP monthly pass to the UCB Theatre? I was just there on Saturday night for the UCB Season 2 taping; last night I took a night off (despite the temptation to witness the rebirth of the Jeff Garlin Combo Platter), and Monday night I’ll be right back at it. I’d better bring some sticks of Super Cool with me in order to keep my energy up.

I could easily spend this entire week at the UCB. If I did, this is what I would see:

Photo by m. berru

Monday: Sarah Thyre’s memoir show Dark at the Roots. I remember Sarah Thyre from Strangers from Candy, and if you throw in her sister Becky (a fave from Mr. Show) as well as Patton Oswalt and Paul F. Tompkins, you’ve got a must-see. Will Mr. Thyre, aka Andy Richter, be there too? Apparently I’m the only one in LA without an Andy Richter sighting. (8pm, $5)

Tuesday: Patton Oswalt will be sleeping over Monday night in order to be there in time to be grilled by Doug Benson for his I Love Movies podcast. (6pm, Free!) And what would Tuesday night be without Comedy Death Ray, this week hosted by Human Giant, who will be showing sneak-preview clips of their new MTV show. (8:30pm, $5) CDR, as always, will be followed by See You Next Tuesday, this week featuring the Sklar Brothers, making Tuesday night one of those special three-bagger nights at the UCB. (10:30pm, Free!)

Wednesday: I have yet to see the MySpace show, but I’ve heard that it’s a favorite of the younger crowd, and it always sells out, so I’d better line up early. If I’ve learned anything recently, no alt-comedy show would be complete without a MySpace reference, a YouTube reference, and some sort of rape joke; hopefully that night, I’ll get all three. (9:30pm, $5)

Thursday: I love the UCB’s double-bills, which are a great way to see something new and something old at the same time. I love Hard ‘N Phirm, so if I go check out their show, I get to see Pete and Brian’s One Man Show as well. Apparently you vote whether to see Pete’s show or Brian’s; since I’ve never seen either one, I’ll probably just flip a coin. Unless anyone can give me some inside information as to which one’s better. (8pm, $5)

Friday: Common sense should suggest that I take a night off, but this week there’s a full night of Chicago-style improv with two (2) Harold Night double bills, (8pm, $5) or, in other words, four (4) complete Harolds. (9:30pm, $5) Improv such as ASSSSCAT is the meat and potatoes of the UCB, and tonight I’ll get to see the next generation of cats’ asses.

Saturday: Any night where Paul F. Tompkins is recording a CD for AST Records is a special night in and of itself. (10pm, $8) But I want more, and I’m tempted to check out ASSSSCAT beforehand. (8pm, $8) This will be my sixth ASSSSCAT. As far as I’m concerned, I’m five for five; meet any of the ASSSSCAT diehards who populate the front two rows and you’ll find out that they go every damn week, and they laugh their asssses off every damn week.

Sunday: Why not double up my weekend ASSSSCATs? (7:30, Free!) The Sunday night one is the free one, followed by the Jeff Garlin Combo Platter (9:30pm, $1) for an extra dollar. That’s a night of comedy for a dollar. Someday when I’m rich and famous I’m going to drop a hundy in the Bucket of Truth.

The day I can drop a Benjamin on Franklin Ave. is the day I know I’ve made it. Until then, I’m going to enjoy a weeks worth of comedy at the UCB Theater for, let’s see here, a total of $47 dollars for all the shows I’ve just mentioned. Isn’t that equivalent to one night, two drinks, and two “n” words at the Laugh Factory?

We’re taking the day off today to catch up with some of our other sports-related passions. See you folks, tomorrow. Don’t burn the place down.

Whenever contributing writer David Pardue sends in a recap, he’s always putting a bunch of thought into it, taking them to the next level and making us look bad in the process. In fact, we’re not even sure if this should be put in the “Show Recaps” category, but since we don’t yet have a category named “Well Thought-Out Essays On The Craft Of Comedy Disguised As A Show Recap”, this will have to do. His words follow.

I must be in the front row!

Natasha Leggero (host)
Seth Morris
Steve Agee
Nadia Bacon
Amber Tozer
Spencer Brown
Martha Kelly
Harris Wittels
Neil Hamburger

My friend Tina and I were at the UCB Theatre last week, waiting for Joe Rogan to perform. A girl walked in and noticed the front row was empty. “Why isn’t anybody sitting in the front row?” she mused to no one in particular.

“Maybe because no one wants to get spit on,” Tina said, jokingly. The girl wrinkled her nose.

“JOE DOESN’T SPIT!” she shouted in a huff and sat down right in front, almost in defiance.

Wednesday night at You’re Welcome!, the front row was empty at the M Bar once Neil Hamburger hit the stage. Good thing, because Neil does spit. A lot. Usually it’s into his own drink, but still. With him, you get equal parts comedy, mannered awkwardness, and phlegm.

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