On Comedy Central’s ‘Insomniac,’ Dave Attell is affable and funny. That’s because it’s easy to pull half-an-hour of charm out of a week’s worth of footage. When Attell hit the stage Saturday night at the Landmark Theatre, he had all the charisma of a dead skunk.

Attell used most of the same material from his February 2003 release ‘Skanks for the Memories,’ which would have been fine if his delivery was even slightly entertaining. He strutted around the stage like a modern emissary of comedy (which he is not) and proceeded to launch into his tired sex and alcohol-based routine. Add to that the fact that his humor ignorantly marginalizes gays, and you have a comic that would be better suited for construction work or pantomime.

Attell commented about guys who go to see the Blue Man Group as ‘partly queer with a chance of fag.’ Funny, but put more than a few jokes like that in one act, and a line is crossed. Attell justifies these jokes by occasionally making himself the object of them: ‘I know I’m not gay because once I was making a sandwich and a cucumber went up my ass … three times.’ But simply perpetuating gay stereotypes without any larger point serves to belittle the gay community, however unintentionally.

On the opposite side of things, Lewis Black, who co-headlined the tour, was brilliant. His material was fresh and relevant, even though most of the glory of Black’s act is in the delivery. His double-jointed fingers, which he constantly jabs at the imaginary butt of his current diatribe, are an extension of his successful, truly scathing criticisms.

He laced into Enron and Adelphia about the incomprehensibility of corporate greed: ‘If a company can’t explain, in one sentence, what they do … then it’s illegal.’ Black’s jokes are perfect when said out loud.

Opener Mitch Hedberg, whose delivery was equally entertaining – if slightly more inebriated – screwed up his jokes, but it worked to his advantage. He promised, after he stumbled physically and verbally through a joke, that it would be funny when the tour stopped in Albany. Even so, Hedberg’s act was full of deadpan one-liners and quirky digressions that were undeniably funny.

Black and Hedberg were a testament to Comedy Central’s taste, but next time, they should leave Attell off the bill.

Colin Dabkowski is a senior magazine and spanish major. E-mail him at colin@dailyorange.com.

Published on September 28, 2003 at 12:00 pm