Dave Attell, Jim Norton joined by other comedians for anti-social network tour
Here’s a damn good comedy tour: Dave Attell, Jim Norton, Bill Burr and Jim Breuer perform Sunday at the Palms. But Attell gives us fair warning that they’re not pretty, with their baldness and their faces.
“The problem with Jim (Norton) and I is: We both have that East European look. We’re like two Estonians who tricked a couple of models into a facial audition. We’re not good-looking men.”
Attell says he’s got a face made for “flight risk.”
In Washington, D.C., Norton joked about having the face of a child molester:
“I was walking past a playground, and kids were pointing at me. When you look like me, you never want a child to point at you. Nothing good ever comes of that.”
Attell claims he’s the weakest link:
“If this tour was Michael Douglas, I would be the flat ass you see getting out of bed.”
Norton and Doug Stanhope are Attell’s favorite comedians, because they truly don’t care about the repercussions of telling super filthy jokes.
Attell is raunchy, but he holds back from Norton/Stanhope levels.
“At the end of the day, I want to play a dad on a sitcom,” Attell jokes.
As notoriously sexual as Norton has been, none of these comics does drugs or really drinks anymore, Attell says.
“We’re all so old,” he says. “We’re like ZZ Top.”
He compares their ages to the New Kids on the Block, who are playing Las Vegas the same night.
“I’d like to see our audience rumble with the Backstreet audience. That would be a great throwdown, sponsored by Lipitor.”
The name of the tour is The Anti-Social Network. That fits Attell. The last time he posted anything on MySpace was two weeks after President Obama was elected.
Attell has 75,000 followers on Twitter, but he’s tweeted only three times.
“That’s three more than Beyonce!” Attell says in his defense. “And she has a million-plus (followers). I think when you hit 2 million on Twitter, all your dead relatives come back to life.”
Attell stays off the social networking grid, because he thinks true comedy fans will go see him anyway. And he worries Twitter might draw the kind of fan who goes to see comedians because they were in a movie or on a TV show.
“None of us were in ‘The Green Lantern,’ but I guess we can ride Jim (Norton’s) ‘Spider-Man’ credit, and (Jim Breuer) for ‘Half Baked.’ ”
Attell says the other comedians on tour advertise it through social media. But he really doesn’t enjoy Twitter/Facebook intrusions.
“I used to sell magazines over the phone. That’s like what we’re doing now with all this promoting,” Attell says. “The days of getting wasted and going out there and doing a couple of midget jokes are over.”
He hates it that audiences at comedy shows use their iPhones and BlackBerrys midshow — a trend I noticed at the Palms gigs of Jim Jefferies and Greg Proops, who both verbally savaged phone-fans.
“You’re sitting in the front row of a comedy club, and you’re on a Blackberry — I’m going to say something,” Attell says.
“And now I feel like the dick? Because I caught you and you can’t play ‘Angry Birds’ while I’m up here?”
Oh well. He promises a funny show, anyway.
“I really think we should end with a stunt. Maybe we can get Penn & Teller to come by. That would be cool,” he says earnestly.
“It’s a comic-friendly tour,” he says. “It’s like Comic-Con. By that, I mean there’s never any chicks. It’s all dudes.
“Actually in Chicago, there was a hot chick with one arm. I was into her. I was, like, ‘Wow, that’s something new.’ I’m sure Norton has already been down that (sexual) road. That’s so 2005.”
Doug Elfman’s column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Contact him at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.