CD Review
Taylor Williamson: Laughter? I Hardly Know Her
4 stars (out of 5)
Part pun-prone coincidence and part daily happenstance, Laughter? I Hardly Know Her has some monumental punch lines as Taylor Williamson (Last Comic Standing and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson) approximates what the world of beautiful women and racist grand parents mean relative to his sarcastic self. One of Williamson’s most thrilling traits is an ability to extend jokes further and further past what the audience expects…similar to the inventive joke in the title of the CD, there are intuitive twists of misdirection and surprise endings, like when Williamson seems to be ending a line but then describes an additional three generations of teen-moms in the same breath.
He says his repertoire of devastating one-liners is some of the accrued successes of his nine-year career. He is not in short supply, even for a nine-year chronological fishing net, and the experience shows during audience participation time and a hilarious meta-wrap up late in the set.
His relaxed, sarcastic tone deals with Americans who can’t seem to get things right, addressing them in the manner we all secretly dream we would as we walk quietly away from confrontation and quell the urge to lean on our horns…As we swallow our pride to deal with a room mates cutesy purchases, Williamson synchronously buys a bowl to puke in on the same shopping trip. He even has a good New York bit for a Hollywood guy, explaining how a homeless man that presented Islamic Extremism themed threats was actually impressive, for keeping up with the news, “reading his blanket.” I also have never been able to understand the prolific amount, let alone the single occurrence, of the condom tied in a knot on the sidewalk, an unfortunate aspect of NYC’s decor that made his list of lessons learned.
Taylor Williamson’s Laughter? I Hardly Know Her presents punching ironies fueled by anecdotal reveries of the American dumb. Available now at TaylorWilliamson.com.
