Superstar comedian Dane Cook performed in our fair city this past week. Unfortunately for me, I did not get the chance to go.

I am a HUGE Dane Cook fan, so it killed me a little bit that I wasn’t able to take in the show, but I guess that’s life. I’ll just have to catch him next time he comes through town – if he chooses to bless our humble city with his greatness again in the future, that is.

The reason I am such a HUGE Dane Cook fan is probably not the same reason a lot of other people are. Seeing as tickets for last week’s show ranged from $36.50 to $260, there are apparently many people who are willing to actually pay a lot of money to see him perform. But I am not one of these people.

How then, you might ask, if I would never have paid that much to see one of Dane Cook’s shows, can I be justified in calling myself a HUGE fan of his? It’s simple. I’m not a fan of his comedy; I’m a fan of what he does for comedy.

Dane Cook is so mediocre and uninspired that he sets the bar realistically low for other aspiring comedians. His shtick is so unoriginal and derivative of the same shit we’ve seen bad comics doing for years that it gives people who think they might like to try comedy the impression that they can do it too.

I’ve believed for a long time now that truly great comedy is the kind that is so inspired and so beyond the reach of everyday people that it makes other comedians want to kill themselves. It makes them realize that they will never achieve anything so epic and amazing.

Andy Kaufman was one such asshole: someone who was so brilliant that his comedy made other comedians want to jump off a cliff. I feel the same way about Bill Hicks, Mitch Hedberg and Lenny Bruce.

What these people did was so amazing that few people (if any) will ever be able to match their comedic brilliance. That’s why I think they were a bunch of assholes: because they made people feel bad about themselves. Dane Cook would never do anything like that.

Another great example of mediocrity in the name of sparing the feelings of the masses is the band Nickelback. They are so generic and mediocre that no teen-aged aspiring musician will ever listen to one of their albums and think, “Wow. I’ll never be as good as them. I may as well off myself right now.”

As someone who dabbles in musical comedy, the only thing I could ever hope for is that Dane Cook and Nickelback may one day team up to lower the bar for me too. Maybe I’ll write them a letter to suggest the idea to them.

But don’t look for me at their show.

Don’t let J. Williamez’s modesty fool you. He is at least as funny as Nickelback and as musically talented as Dane Cook.

Published in Volume 64, Number 13 of The Uniter (November 26, 2009)