Silence I Kill YOU

I get delayed in writing things on my blog even though I mean to write them. I upload pictures and then get distracted by work, and my hours of recorded shows (side note: I realized I somehow have a free subscription to like Encore classic movies and will now rarely ever leave the couch). Last Thursday I saw Jeff Dunham live in "concert". I guess concert is not the appropriate word, as he is a comedian, but I cannot think of a better way to describe the arena-setting puppet-show. Made famous by Ahmed the "dead terrorist" and his classic line "Silence...I'll kill you" (seriously worth googling), Jeff Dunham is basically a ventriloquist, who uses his puppets to say all the non- PC things he wants to say. For example, Ahmed allows him to make fun of "infidels", Walter (the elderly man) allows him to make fun of virtually all races and ethnicities, and well...Bubba J is a redneck, so you can imagine how easy that makes it for him.

Because of this "off collar" style of comedy, it probably is no shock to you that the audience was 95% republican (yes, I wondered where they came from in DC...yet, if the Massachusetts election taught me anything, it is that there are more independents than you realize, and that states are much less purely blue or red than you would think). But, you still may ask how I knew they were all republican? Well, being in DC, two political jokes were made and it was obvious when the cheers came. One such joke done by "Guitar Guy", the opening act, involved a song about 2012 and waiting with excitement for change to occur....and everyone cheered. Then, the song turned out not to be about Obama, but instead about Oprah and how excited he was that she was going off of TV. WHOOPS. Way to acknowledge your political stance audience, and fall into the comedian's trap. Besides the audience reactions, just looking around in the arena, my suspicions were further confirmed. The people reminded me more of going to Sonny's Bar-b-q at home in Florida, than going to a Broadway play. This means that there was lots of double fisting the $8.00 beers.... oh wait, that was me.

Anyway, if you at all think he is funny you should absolutely 100% go see him in person. He uses all new material (minus the Bubba J encore in which the audience quoted his entire set even though Jeff needed a paper to remember the routine AWKWARD. Bubba J said in response, ..."Damn, this is like some weird version of church") and may even be funnier live. His routine has great one-liners (ex. from Ahmed on why he hated LA: "The only virgins left were the Jonas Brothers") and his puppets are so well made with very realistic facial expressions that sometimes you forget they are puppets. In fact, I really wanted to buy a puppet for my room, but they were 50 dollars each. I guess it was a supply and demand thing. Oh well...thanks for crushing my ventriloquist puppet owning-dreams.

This show was the first time I have seen him that I liked two of his other puppets better than Ahmed, Peanut and Walter (see below):

As Walter, he told probably the best bit of the show: a story about bathroom attendants. Perhaps because I have never understood them, and I always feel awkward getting handed a towel, or a mint, and not wanting to tip them, this story really struck a chord with my sense of humor. Walter described an experience he had with Manuel the bathroom attendant and how when he walked into the bathroom and saw him he thought, "Man, this piss is gonna cost me". He then tried to use the automatic flush and couldn't get it to work. He saw the "manual" flush button on the side and then thought to himself, "he has to flush the toilet too?" (haha manual...Manuel...get it?!). Ok, so I am probably not that good at relaying this story, but it, along with Peanut's incredibly stereotypical story of ordering Chinese food over the phone, was fantastic. All in all, perhaps the best thing about Jeff Dunham is all the different sounds, languages, and voices he can make without moving his lips. He definitely makes a guy with dolls and puppets look cool.