STAND UP TUESDAYS: Jim Norton

August 13th, 2013

Angie Frissore

Stand-Up Tuesdays is a weekly comedy spotlight written by the wonderfully talented Angie Frissore. Covering both known and unknown comics, Stand-up Tuesdays is your new source for all things funny.

This week, Angie puts a spotlight on Jim Norton’s comedy career. If you or your comedy troupe would like to be featured on Stand-Up Tuesdays, please email utgjames@gmail.com.

Comedian and Opie & Anthony co-host Jim Norton’s new one-hour special, American Degenerate, is set to premiere on Friday, August 23^rd on EPIX, and is without a doubt the best-selling author’s best work to date. Recorded at Boston’s Somerville Theatre earlier this year, American Degenerate offers Norton sharing his scathing opinions on Casey Anthony, detailing highly uncomfortable air-travel stories in which he can’t get over a seat neighbor’s ‘man smell’, and generally delighting his enormous and devoted Boston fan base.

Having been a fan of Norton’s for years, it’s clear to see in American Degenerate how his comedic style has grown slightly less bitter and even more articulate and intelligent. Though still chock full of the self-deprecating hilarity fans are accustomed to, Norton is very much able to set himself apart from being just another shock comic. His social commentary isn’t just emotion-fueled, but it’s also well-informed and intelligent – of course, that’s not to say the special is lacking in typical Norton moments.

I recently had the absolute pleasure of sitting down with Norton to talk about his new special, which had me literally laughing so loud that my neighbors have probably assumed I’ve gone insane. Addressing such topics as rape jokes offending bloggers and non-stand-ups stealing material from Patrice O’Neal, Norton mainly hopes his onstage rant about bloggers doesn’t seem like a direct attack on Lindy West (who Norton remains friends with following their debate over rape jokes on Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell), or other bloggers for that matter.

“I wanted to stress something about this special, because Lindy West (from Jezebel) and I had this debate on W. Kamau Bell’s show, and I disagreed with her stance, but I like her. I genuinely like her. And this special was taped before I had ever heard of her – this was taped before we debated, before I ever read her, so this was not in reference to her,” Norton told me. “I want to make it clear – I feel bad almost that she and I had this debate, and we kind of remained friends after. I don’t want it to seem like I would be duplicitous enough to have a friendly debate with her and then address blogging harshly like I was being a cocksucker to her. I want that to be clear that this was not addressed towards her.”

As a comedian who is known for being offensive, Norton stresses that there’s probably nobody in stand-up comedy who actually takes subjects like rape lightly.

“What really bothers me about the rape arguments is to imply that by doing rape jokes, you don’t take rape seriously. Like, I do pedophile jokes, and I think pedophiles should be executed. I do drunk driving jokes, I do a tremendous amount of harsh humor, and they say, ‘Well, humor shouldn’t minimalize,’” Norton states. “Humor should do whatever you want it to do in that joke. Sometimes you minimalize a horrible thing. If you’re doing it and the motive is to be funny, it does not mean that you don’t value the real experience or that you don’t take the real experience seriously.”

Breaching such topics is clearly something that Norton fans not only understand, but absolutely delight in – his two shows in Boston for the special’s taping sold out in mere minutes and Norton cites Boston as being one of his favorite cities to visit and perform in. When it comes to American Degenerate, Norton only wishes he was able to address the Boston Marathon bombing, which occurred just weeks following his taping.

“I really love to work in Boston. It’s one of my best markets, and it was right before the bombing. I wish it was after so I could have addressed it, you know,” Norton reflects. “But it was really, really good. I love working up there. I wanted to tape in Boston the year before, for Please Be Offended, but it just wasn’t possible, so I’m happy I was able to do it.”

Jim Norton’s American Degenerate premieres on Friday, August 23 on EPIX, and in celebration of the debut, New Wave Entertainment will be releasing Norton’s 2012 EPIX special, Please Be Offended, on CD, DVD and digitally on August 20. The special, recorded at the Ohio Theatre in Cleveland, premiered on EPIX last year, and was the highest rated comedy special premiere in the network’s history.

You can read my entire interview with Jim Norton here.

Grade: A