It's Not Funny

1	Certain Leaders in Government Look or Act Like Certain Pop Culture ... 4:51
2	Women, Please Rinse Off Your Vagina and Anus! 5:10
3	I've Taken a Popular Contemporary Pop Song and Changed the Lyrics ... 3:16
4	A Rapid Series of Comical Noises! 3:57
5	Although Indigent, Rural Families Have Little to Say in the ... 2:48
6	My Child Is Enthralling, Especially When It Says Something ... 8:38
7	My Immigrant Mom Talks Funny! 13:37
8	When It Come to Jews, Behavior One Might Perceive as Obnoxious and ... 6:01
9	Pandering to the Locals! 7:13
10	Even Though I Am in the Closet, That Won't Prevent Me from Getting ... 2:37
11	Weathermen Have Become, For the Most Part, Obsolete! 2:53
12	When Is Said and Done, I Am Lonely and Miserable and Barely Able ... 12:51

Barnes & Noble

David Cross first earned his reputation as a writer and performer on the HBO comedy series Mr. Show with Bob and David and as a writer for The Ben Stiller Show, but with his 2002 CD of contentious stand-up comedy, Shut Up You F***ing Baby!, the funnyman emerged as an uproarious one-man show. The bile-filled laughs continue on It's Not Funny, which captures Cross in front of an audience at The Improv in Washington, DC, in January 2004. For over an hour, Cross rails against targets both obvious (hard-line right-wingers, haters of all kinds) and unexpected (kids, women having abortions). His wit is at its razor-sharp best when he's cutting down Bush and his buddies, nailing Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge for suggesting that New Yorkers, in the wake of the 9/11 disaster, line their windows with duct tape and plastic sheeting ("It's two layers of duct tape, people... That prevents nuclear bombs from entering your skin"), musing about the terrorist alerts ("Are we still in apricot?"), and needling the Republican Party ("I'm not saying that all Republicans are racist, sexist homophobes, just the people they choose to elect into office to represent them are, that's all"). Strom Thurmond may seem like an easy target, but Cross does it right, whining that he's mad at the late senator's illegitimate, mixed-race daughter for not coming out with her paternity before her dad's death because "she thus denied all of us that f***ing hypocritical piece of sh*t's explanation!" While his tirades are largely political -- perhaps due in part to the gig's capital location -- he finds time to condemn racists and homophobes as well, musing over such quandaries as segregated graveyards and the illegality of sodomy in some places. But wherever Cross points his verbal canon, shredding explosions will surely follow -- as will a high-volume stream of laughs. Lydia Vanderloo

All Music Guide

David Cross' first album, Shut Up, You Fucking Baby!, was a sprawling double-disc set, which was a risk. Not only are double-disc debuts a rarity, but comedy albums are notoriously inconsistent, so Cross was putting himself out on the line, but he succeeded grandly, delivering an epic masterpiece that fully captured the range and scope of his humor and stayed funny on repeated listens. Perhaps it was inevitable that its successor would suffer in comparison, and It's Not Funny, released 18 months later in the spring of 2004, does. Part of the problem is that he's covering many of the same topics he did on Shut Up; even though 9/11 and George W. Bush loomed as large on the American psyche in 2004 as they did in 2002 -- it'd only been 18 months, after all -- his jokes on these topics aren't markedly different than they were on the previous record, nor are they better, and even if you agree with his politics, there's simply too much of an emphasis on this, particularly since he's reworking the same territory, not developing it. This gives a little credibility to the suspicion that It's Not Funny was rushed to release. The album is culled from a series of performances at the Improv in Washington, D.C., between January 15 and 18, 2004, which, given the May 5 release, didn't give Cross and his production team much time to edit and complete the album, and it does indeed have a bit of a tossed-off feel as if Cross were still working on new material that was rushed to market. Another part of the problem is that these shows were at a comedy club, not a rock venue, where Cross prefers to perform since they have a looser, wilder feel. Certainly, It's Not Funny feels more like a traditional comedy record than Shut Up since it feels more like a collection of jokes, and it also suffers from inconsistent material. But since Cross is one of the sharpest, smartest, and flat-out funniest comedians of his time, the album is still very much worthwhile. It may be a collection of moments, but when the moments click, they kill, whether it's a bit about electric scissors, a story about eating at an expensive restaurant where they serve edible gold, or a segment on Bush's religion. These may not be as memorable as the best moments on Shut Up -- nothing like the immortal story about getting drunk with Harlow -- but that's an unfair yardstick since his peers couldn't live up to that album either. Instead of being a classic, It's Not Funny is a solid comedy recording capturing a good, average performance by a brilliant comedian. It may not be timeless, which its predecessor certainly was, but it is sure worth a listen. Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Rolling Stone

It's Not Funny is fueled by the acuity of detail and Cross' pitch-perfect delivery. Christian Hoard