If you like your stand-up smart, adventurous, quirky and sometimes
surreal, you’ll love Brent Weinbach. The evidence to back
up this perhaps overly-glib assurance is plentiful in his career
mileposts--both positive and not-so-positive. For example, he’s
appeared at HBO’s U.S. Comedy Arts Festival, been spotlighted
as a “Name To Watch” in New York Magazine, has performed
as sort of an adjunct member of The Comedians Of Comedy, the ultra-talented
and bright brigade of stand-up comics (Patton Oswalt, Brian Posehn,
Maria Bamford, Zach Galifianakis form the core) featured in the
acclaimed documentary film of the same name and performing at
select venues and festivals; indeed, Brent joined the COC for
a show at 2007’s internationally-renowned Coachella Valley
Music And Arts Festival. Another 2007 festival appearance--not
tied to the COC; he landed this one just by his lonesome--was
at Bumbershoot, Seattle’s venerable (it started in 1971)
music and arts festival, sharing a stage with Eugene Mirman and
“Saturday Night Live’s” Fred Arnisen and on
a bill also featuring the likes of Greg Proops and Janeane Garofalo.
Gee, this all sounds thoroughly impressive and positive--where
are the not-so-positive mileposts you started off talking about?
Oh, yeah, well most of the Weinbach saga is positive and impressive,
including--in terms of his comedy artistry--what might otherwise
be viewed as a setback: In March of 2006, he taped a stand-up
set on “The Late, Late Show With Craig Ferguson,”
which apparently went well, generated a strong audience response--but
a CBS executive “didn’t get it,” and Brent’s
set was not aired. Yikes! There are a hundred things one might
say about that experience, but the first is that this puts him
in pretty good company of comedians whose sets were excised from
late-night network television. (Did someone say Bill Hicks?) .
Or as Time Out New York phrased all this far more succinctly:
“weird, scary, hilarious.”
With Moshe Kasher
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