Gaiety turns up a leg hurt (8)

Saying "I'm sorry" is the same as saying "I apologize".
Except at a funeral.
-- Demetri Martin, These Are Jokes
I like to laugh. In the summer of 2005, I was reminded how much I liked good standup comedy when Kyle and I made the drive from Holland Landing to Dryden over two days and he played me his Mitch Hedberg CDs and I laughed and laughed. Although they were [and still are] hilarious, they're hard to fit into an iPod mix because they work best when listened to in their entirety, and are out of place when interrupting a string of music.

Over the holiday, I had a comedy downloading spell. I got copies of Ricky Gervais' Animals and Politics, as well as Lewis Black's Red, White and Screwed (which Cheryl and I will watch together at some point). My downloading spell was precipitated by the fact that I had just read Just Joking by Jimmy Carr and Lucy Greeves, and I wanted to hear more from some of the "contributors" who had made me laugh so much. With a handful of new comedy albums on the hard drive though, I didn't know how best to listen to them. If I have time to sit in front of the laptop, I have plenty of TV to watch. Audio is more for something to have in the background, but if comedy is too far in the background, you don't get it.

I resolved my problem this week by burning a couple CDs of mp3 files. The Civic has a CD drive that reads mp3, so on the drives I have taken since Monday (when I went to Campbellford), I have been listening and laughing with David Cross (who's albums were a mix of insightful political commentary and profane rage), Norm MacDonald (who I usually like, but whose sketches on Ridiculous were crude and not terribly funny), and the afore-referenced Demetri Martin, who I recognize from a couple bits he has done on the Daily Show, but who is way funnier on his These Are Jokes CD. It reminds me of Mitch. You should really listen to it.

Now if only I could train myself to spell his first name properly.