Rules Of Enragement

Comedy albums have long existed on the margins, generally selling a fraction of what music CDs do, and for good reason: Only the greatest stand-up performances warrant multiple listens. Couple that with the saturation of solo comedy available on cable TV (and, increasingly, on DVD), and it's no wonder that comedy albums have largely gone the way of George Burns. But Comedy Central is still using the medium as a way of extending its brand, and the network-cum-label wisely decided on good-sized names for some of its first CD releases. Lewis Black, best known for his spitting, fuming, dead-funny commentaries on The Daily Show, expands on that persona in clubs. And he captured a fine set for Rules Of Enragement, an hourlong album that builds slowly from wry observational humor on drinking, travel, and the weather into Black's strongest area, politics. His acerbic, fact-loaded rants on corporate greed dole out equal parts wit and rage, running a close parallel to Peter Finch's character in Network, replacing "I'm as mad as hell" with "I'd have a joke about that, but it makes me too fucking angry!" Bobcat Goldthwait, best known to mainstream America as the screamy guy from the Police Academy movies, doesn't fare as well with I Don't Mean To Insult You, But You Look Like Bobcat Goldthwait; he expends a bit too much energy merely complaining. His self-deprecation starts off funny enough–"I've been in movies and I've been on television, but you don't know what a thrill it is to be in an almost-filled club in San Jose. Hi!"–but the bits degenerate when he directs his bitterness outward: "If I was gay, I'd sell a lot more tickets. I knew Margaret Cho when she was straight. You could get in to see her any night of the week. Now that she's a dyke, she sells out theaters!" Which isn't to say Goldthwait doesn't have his moments, especially during his biting monologues about being a Hollywood B-lister. But on the whole, I Don't Mean To Insult You, unlike Black's set, can't answer in the affirmative a comedy album's most daunting question: Is this worth hearing again