Patton Oswalt
Best known to the public as “Spence” on The King of Queens and the voice of Remy in Ratatouille, Oswalt’s true vocation is a stand-up, and he’s one of the best around. His wordy, hyper-intelligent routines — vacillating between the geekily self-deprecating and the viciously satirical — lay waste to America’s diseased political and pop-cultural climate. Favorite line: “Every time you eat a steak, a hippy’s hacky-sack goes in the gutter.”
Eugene Mirman
He’s parlayed the rigors of a Lexington High School education into a career as one of the wittiest and weirdest stand-ups and filmmakers around. He’s left us now for the bright lights of New York City, but still performs semi-regularly at the Union Square Roundtable. (Read more about it here.)
Emo Philips
He’s been regaling audiences with his garden-path sentences and provocative non-sequiturs — delivered in that inimitable slide-whistle voice — since the early ‘80s. As such, he’s something of a godfather to the current alternative-comedy scene. “One of my favorite comics growing up in Lexington was Emo Phillips,” says Mirman. “I used to listen to his records all the time.”
Todd Barry
His sotto-voce soliloquies are quietly devastating. Even if certain members of the Conan O’Brien message board and disgruntled audience members don’t always think so. (Not for nothing, his “Receipt Museum” at ToddBarry.com offers a trenchant sociological study of the plight of the modern consumer.)
The Walsh Brothers
By far, the best freeform stand-up/sketch-comedy/sleight-of-hand/storytelling sibling act ever to spring from the mean streets of Charlestown. (Read their blog, or Ted Drozdowski’s review of one of their recent shows.)
Morgan Murphy
Her mordant routines bring a much-needed female voice to the party, whether she’s mocking Paris Hilton or wearing a fake moustache in a duet with Aimee Mann.
Jim Jeffries
Jeffries, an Aussie, is probably hoping Somerville audiences — unlike those in Manchester, England — don’t leap to the stage and punch him repeatedly without provocation.
doktor cocacolamcdonalds
From the UK, this “One Man Rock Opera” with a keytar and a faceful of makeup, is utterly sui generis. “All I’ll say about him,” says AltCom organizer Brian Joyce, “is everywhere he’s gone, he’s usually the one that people are left talking about.”
Related:
Funny business, Comic belief, Interview: Eugene Mirman, More 
- Funny business
“Ashlee Simpson’s new album sold so poorly,” snorted the headline on Yahoo! this past week, that “it was beaten by a comedy album.”
- Comic belief
Each week at a combination bar, video store, and comedy club in Lower Manhattan, comedians Eugene Mirman and Bobby Tisdale host "Invite Them Up."
- Interview: Eugene Mirman
Much like the stand-up that has made him an alt-comedy mainstay, Eugene Mirman's first book, The Will to Whatevs (Harper Perennial), is a freewheeling mix of bemused ironies and trenchantly silly non-sequiturs.
- Dance, Monkey: Eugene Mirman
It would make her very popular with both blue-collar voters and the wealthy, latte-sipping bisexuals who like Obama.
- Road show
Be warned, Hollywood: Eugene Mirman ain’t takin’ yo’ shit.
- Two guys walk into a bar . . .
From the outside, P.A.’s Lounge looks like a place a man in a joke about a bar might think twice about bringing his talking dog into.
- Interview: Kristen Schaal
Writing a book about romance with her boyfriend, Schaal says, "is kind of killing our romance a little bit, because you stay up late to write the book, and then you're too tired to get it on."
- What not to do with your folks this graduation weekend
* Ask Dad if your new friends from the Pit, Crusty and Smeg, can come with you to dinner at Upstairs on the Square.
- High dives
Dive bars. Where the drinks are cold and stiff. Where the air wafts with the unmistakable but not-altogether-unpleasant tang of suds long since spilled. Where the neon shines bright and true and the jukebox plays good and loud.
- Splice and dice
The making of a montage
- Post-steroid baseball
The bunting is hung. The chalk lines are laid out with Euclidian precision.
- Less
Topics:
Lifestyle Features
, Eugene Mirman, Conan O'Brien, Paris Hilton, More
, Eugene Mirman, Conan O'Brien, Paris Hilton, Aimee Mann, Patton Oswalt, Brian Joyce, Emo Phillips, Emo Philips, Less
