Las Vegas Weekly

July 7, 2008 · 11:37 PM

“You Can Pee When You’re Dead”: Doug Benson at the Backyard Comedy Show

By Julie Seabaugh

Doug Benson and Brandt Tobler at the Backyard Comedy Show at Beauty Bar.

Photo: Jasmyn Napue

For the fifth effort since their collaboration’s inception, Brandt Tobler and Matt Markman traded Tobler’s fenced-in gravel for Beauty Bar’s rear patio Thursday night when they welcomed Doug Benson to the Backyard Comedy Show.

Following the pair’s opening sets, Benson welcomed the heavily-drinking crowd, asking, “How’s it going, Backyard Comedy Show? That means you all take it in the ass!” For a loose 45 minutes the VH1 talking head and star of the recent documentary Super High Me marveled at the overhead streetlight’s random lighting patterns, gave away a t-shirt and DVD and performed extended chunks on the McGriddles breakfast sandwich and the absurdity of anti-pot ads.

At 125 strong, the crowd responded well to such material as “For the past few years, I have only had sex in the months that end in –bruary, in years that have an Olympics. Just the Winter Games,” and “Did you guys hear that Webster’s dictionary has decided that ginormous is a word? Ginormous is a word? That is f---diculous. What kind of bullsh--itude is going on over at Webster’s? He was a good child actor, but as an adult, his dictionary is f-ing stupid.” But it was his off-the-cuff reactions to the environment that proved that though his mind may ostensibly be clouded, the synapses still fire faster than most “mainstream” comics.

Among Benson’s other choice remarks:

• I came in with wet hair tonight prepared to get it blow-dried while I had a cocktail, and those f--king things don’t work. It’s just for show. It’s bullsh-t.

• You may also know me from Last Comic Standing, where I came in sixth place, which means that for the time being, until a few weeks from now, I am the sixth funniest person in the world. I happen to know for a fact that the top five funniest people are nowhere in the vicinity, so you have chosen the best possible comedy show outside behind a bar in a hundred degree heat in the world. Congratulations.

• I was in a show called The Marijuana-Logues. We toured around the country. We never got to play Vegas for some weird reason. A place where you can, like, f--k and drink and gamble: “Ah! No pot show! Please don’t bring your pot show to our decent city!”

• Save your energy. Let’s just try to get through this. Let’s not get crazy. If you guys just want to, like, hold up a hand and wiggle your fingers when you think something’s funny, you won’t expend too much energy.

• I’m a multi-tasking pot smoker. Just yesterday I was walking down the street, that one. Stoned. Two things at once. I’ll take that one back. I was walking down the street, I was putting eyedrops in my eyes, I was talking on my cell phone, and I was getting hit by a car. Four things at once. Making sh-t happen.

Look for the Backyard Comedy Show to return in September, featuring more TBA top talent.

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