Owen Benjamin’s hour-long special, High Five Til It Hurts!, has some wonderful material about dealing with the police and the TSA workers. A lot of his material is about differences between men and women, and while this is a well-worn subject for comedians, Owen Benjamin finds new angles and new laughs within it. The last section of his special is done seated at a piano.
Owen Benjamin begins by talking about being a dog owner, and about how dog people are happier people. “Because dogs remind you how great life is – that’s their job.” About waking up he says, “I don’t even know why we have a snooze button. We’re like, Oh, that sucked, let’s do it again in ten minutes.” But a dog is happy to be up. “Buddy, I’ve been staring at you for hours.” All of his stuff where he’s speaking from the dog’s perspective is great.
He also does a wonderful impression of a deer. “Did someone just break a twig? I don’t know what that was, man, but I’m about to run right into that fucking truck right there.” He says, “Deer look like they just ate a sheet of pot cookies all the time.”
The bit about the Falling Rock zone is really funny. A cop pulls him over for speeding and asks him, “Do you know how fast you were going?” He replies, “As fast as I can, sir…I saw a sign back there that said falling rock zone, so I’m trying to get the fuck out.” Brilliant. His anecdote about being pulled over for talking on the cell phone is bloody hilarious and perfect. Logic versus police. “What if I was holding a banana in my hand? What if I was just a little messed up? What if I was talking to a banana? I know that’s not illegal. You can talk to a banana.” This is some of his best material.
I also love the way he handles the TSA bastards. When they pat someone down, they now by law have to ask before touching each part. “‘I’m about to rub the inside of your leg – is that okay?’ I’m like, ‘You’re goddamn right that’s okay. No, you look at me when you do it. No, you look me right in the eye until you find what you’re looking for, bud.’” I love this, especially as TSA bastards have absolutely no sense of humor.
I also completely love his bit about Cosmopolitan magazine, about how all those little articles on how women can please their men are written by women and gay men. “If a straight dude wrote an article for Cosmo, it would just say ‘Feed us, fuck us, stop yelling.’”
About two thirds of the way through his performance he sits at the piano, poking fun at some songs. I don’t listen to much pop these days, so a lot of these references are lost on me. (And sorry, I never cared for Pearl Jam, though I did appreciate their fight against Ticketmaster.) It’s a lot of starting and stopping in this section. I enjoyed the first two thirds of his performance much more than the last third, but the song that’s a musical fight between a man and a woman is great. I think part of the problem is that he says he loves those hard rock power ballads, such as “Home Sweet Home” and “Every Rose Has Its Thorn.” When you find out someone has shitty taste in music, you lose a little respect for him, don’t you? It’s a little harder to like the person if he says he likes Whitesnake (even if he is a comedian).
Bonus Material
The DVD includes a few special features. The first is Comedy Central Presents: Owen Benjamin, a twenty-one-minute live performance in New York. He starts with an anecdote about an angry New Yorker who asks for his autograph, mistaking him for a baseball player. I like his advice about dealing with a break-up. Because people tend to re-evaluate the relationship, thinking it was better than it was because all the photos are of you both happy, he suggests, “Next time she’s screaming at you in Ikea, take a picture. Keep it. And then right after you guys break up, it’s like, ‘Oh yeah, she’s insane.’” In this special, he plays keyboard. He does some of the same material, such as the musical fight between a man and woman.
There are two shorter segments in the special features: “Jokes From The Middles East” and “Jokes From A Tunnel.” The first is approximately two minutes of him making jokes regarding Twitter; the second is about gifts you can get for a woman.
High Five Til It Hurts! was released on July 2, 2013 through Comedy Central Records. This two-disc set includes the performance both on DVD and CD.
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