The Monsters Of Alterna-Comedy...

Last Saturday at the Eureka Theatre in San Francisco, I was lucky enough to see one of the best comedy shows that'll ever play around here anyway. That show was TINKLE, part of the SF Sketchfest currently going on around town.

Anyway, here's the lineup and a short review of their set;

KARLA - A two girl improv troupe. Sucked. Nothing's more painful than a couple of hyper, screaming theatre geeks who try and mask their flimsy material with TONS of enthusiasm.

DAVID CROSS, JON BENJAMIN and TODD BARRY - The three hosts. All brilliant standups by themselves, and put together form not only a normal sized man, but an excellent combination of bitter audience hassling and hilarious schtick.

BRIAN POSEHN - The best pure standup set of the night. Even though most of his act was stuff he was just trying out for the first or second time, it was all hilarious. His bit about how he hates Trannies because their whole life is just trying to fool people, (like putting twigs and leaves over their 'penis trap') was great.

EUGENE MIRMAN - Never disappoints. Always kills.

ROGUE WAVE - 2 song musical performance from an average band. Like R.E.M. with more keyboards.

BOB ODENKIRK - Bob's a weird guy. On one hand, you know he's brilliant, but it seems like most of the time he just can't be bothered. I can't tell if he's just not a 'stage' guy or if he suffers from lack of confidence. He basically did a couple of semi-improv skits that would've been mediocre Mr. Show sketches and then showed a pretty funny short film that someone else had done.

PAUL F. TOMPKINS - Another Mr. Show vet, Tompkins came out, set up a screen, put a chair in front of the screen and proceeded to show the R. Kelly video "Trapped in The Closet" complete with commentary by R. Kelly sitting in front of the screen in the identical fashion as Mr. Tompkins. Every time Kelly made a comment, Tompkins made a comment about the comment. It was HILARIOUS. I mean, I knew R. Kelly was batshit nuts, but I had no freaking idea. Absolutely excellent way to end the show.