If you haven’t experienced a stand-up comedy show in the middle of a Thai restaurant, I suggest going one time. Just once though. That’s all you’ll need.
I went to “What’s Up Tiger Lily” for the first time last night at its temporary location – Pattaya Thai Restaurant. Mostly, I went to see Dana Min Goodman because I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to hear her say “Titties in the house!”, while elderly Thai folks slurp down Tom Yum Goong. It’s priceless really.
Dana was excellent. Brett Gelman, who I hadn’t seen before, was also very funny. But two strange things about the evening stand out (as if random Thai folks being bombarded by stand-up wasn’t enough).
1. Natasha Leggero had trouble getting through her set because a table of Thai people kept talking during their dinner. Crazy…I know. Talking during dinner. Look…when you’re at a comedy show…you should keep your yapper shut and let the comedians do their work. But when a comedy show comes to a Thai restaurant, a block from Thaitown…all bets are off. You just have to power through that action. Lesson…don’t hold your comedy show in the middle of a restaurant.
2. Comedian Greg Barris from New York used the term “CAIDS” in a joke. Now…the only other comedian I’ve heard use CAIDS is Ryan Sickler. It’s one of my favorite jokes ever. He’s performed it for years and he’s performed it on Comedy Central’s “Live at Gotham”. I was curious, so I asked Greg about it. He said he’s been using the term in his joke for 6 years and it has to do with the pinky slipping when typing in AIDS (his joke was about IM’ing a doctor). Not the combination of cancer and AIDS in Sickler’s joke. He also said he never heard of Sickler.
I don’t know what to think here because I don’t want to accuse Barris of joke stealing if he didn’t. According to Urban Dictionary, CAIDS was first defined on the site in 2005 as a combination of cancer and AIDS. So there is some frame of reference. Even if Greg Barris never heard Sickler do the joke, you would think the proper thing to do would be to change his wording from CAIDS to something else because Sickler has performed it on television. That would seem like the professional move to me. But who am I?
Any thoughts or precedents on this?
Good times all around though. I will definitely check the show out again at its normal location which is at Cuba De Oro.
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I’ve seen Greg Barris perform this joke before, they aren’t the same jokes at all. His is that his doctors pinky slips and hit’s the K -button when texting him that he has AIDS. He doesn’t have CAIDS, he doesn’t have cancer and there is no reference to this super disease. It’s a joke about how people aren’t communicating face to face any more, but text messaging and instant messaging. If comedians had to stop using jokes every time words overlapped there wouldn’t be very many comedians.
I’ve known Greg Barris for about eight years and we have written and performed in shows together for much of that time. I know, without a doubt, that Greg did not steal Ryan Sicklers joke. I have watched him do it for years and the joke is not even remotely similar except for the use of the word “CAIDS” Gregs joke is about what has the world has come to by first receiving an instant message from his mom that his Dad died Then his doctor telling him he has AIDS over an IM but it comes out CAIDS because his finger slipped… As a comedian one of the worst things to be known as is a joke theif and it is especially difficult when you work hard and write original material. Sometimes words and premises do overlap though It’s part of the game. Greg doesnt need to change his joke because he didnt steal it.
Greg is an excellent comic and he writes weird, fun shit that is wholly his own. There’s a kind of hive-mind that occurs in comedy and we all sometimes make references that are similar…because we all live in the same world and think about the same stuff: love, illness, death, politics, etc.
He’s the kind of performer other comics would love to steal jokes from, but won’t because he’s a ninja. That last part isn’t true. He has zero ninja training.