Actually, the first laugh for me came when the DVD menu popped up. A group of singers, very seriously, sings the comedian's name a few times. I left the menu on, hoping it would repeat, but it didn't. However, it did start again when I hit play. (And now I want to hire a group of people to sing my name.)
Paul F. Tompkins says that "stand-up comedian" is the job title he's held the longest, that he started doing stand-up at age seventeen. But after dropping out of college, he was told he'd have to get a day job. So he worked in retail back in Philadelphia. And, yes, he brings back to mind the wonderful humiliation of working in retail. Most of us can look back at it now with some amount of joy, or at least some perspective, as Paul does when talking about working at a hat store called Hats In The Belfry. And then moving on up to a video store that only rented Beta tapes. The sort of career path that only a comedian can take.
Finally, after getting fired from a second video store, he began doing stand-up full time. When he mentions Largo, some of the audience cheers (this performance was filmed in the Los Angeles area), and Paul responds, "Sure, you can clap for buildings." He talks about how he did stand-up at Largo, which was mainly a music venue. He became friendly with many of the musicians who played there, and one guy asked him to open for his band on New Year's Eve at the Whiskey. Paul says, "Something about comedy before music makes people lose their minds." It's interesting, because nearly every time I've seen a comedian open for a band, it's been disastrous. There really is something that doesn't work having comedy before music.
One of my favorite sections of this comedy routine is the section about Paul Thomas Anderson. Paul Thomas Anderson was hanging out at Largo, and wanted to put some of the folks from Largo into his new film, Magnolia. So he had a read-through at his house, and Paul F. Tompkins' recounting of that experience is bloody hilarious. (Of course, for me it doesn't hurt that Magnolia is one of my favorite films.) He then goes into a bit about actually filming his part. He had three lines of dialogue, and was nervous as he watched Jason Robards and Philip Seymour Hoffman "doing some of the acting of their lives."
And then later, when Paul was about to do a set at Largo, Paul Thomas Anderson came up to him to apologize for cutting him out of the film, and added, "Just so you know, I'm not going to stay to watch your set." Tompkins joked that essentially what Anderson was saying was, "Oh by the way, I'm also cutting you out of my evening." (He later made it up to him by casting him in There Will Be Blood.)
The performance is approximately 74 minutes, and so quite a bit longer than what was originally broadcast on April 21st on Comedy Central. In addition, there are a few bonus features on the DVD. The first is a feature-length commentary track by Paul F. Tompkins pretending to be Garry Marshall. I love the idea of doing a commentary track for a stand-up routine, because it's essentially a commentary on a commentary. And this is really funny at times. At the beginning he says that he didn't direct this stand-up special, or any other stand-up special, and that he hasn't seen it. "I'm seeing it for the first time, and with the sound down."
By the way, for Shakespeare fans, in the commentary he talks about theatre, about how one time an actor playing Hamlet thought he actually saw the ghost of his own father and freaked out. For those who are curious, that was Daniel Day-Lewis, the star of There Will Be Blood.
The second special feature is "Danny Boy" Encore, which is a nice long segment with piano accompaniment. Approximately twelve minutes in, he does actually sing "Danny Boy," but of course makes jokes throughout. The third special feature is a behind-the-scenes look at the recording of one of his podcasts.
Laboring Under Delusions is scheduled to be released on April 24, 2012.
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