Customer Reviews

Shiny Happy Jihad

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I love vulgar, loud, shock humor as much as the next guy so that's what I expected when I sat down and listened to Joe Rogan's "Shiny Happy Jihad." Let's just say in that department, I was not let down. However, after the first couple tracks of Rogan cleansing himself of his Fear Factor past and describing how great it feels to be high out of your mind, he gets into some very poignant subjects. Gilded in humor, he makes some compelling arguments about social and political issues both popular and taboo. From recommending that we teach kids to jack off as part of sex education to wondering who Bin Laden's cell phone carrier is, Rogan had me cracking up and then seriously thinking "hmmmm...". If you have ever thought there's something wrong with suicide bombers, male enhancement pills, or Noah's Arc, you'll love "Shiny Happy Jihad."

Joe is so Funny it's great. I've listened to it several times. I would tell all my friends to get this CD.

This is the funniest thing I've heard in a long time. I really didn't know he was this funny.

I figured I owed this CD a good word. I found the material to be funny, original and, rare for comedy CDs, it stood up to repeat listenings. Rogan is a pretty real guy and his material seems very succinct to his personality and delivery. Many of his routines are very well thought out and developed. The impersonations are well done and add a lot to the immersion of his stories.

Rogan goes out of his way to be articulate and avoids stepping on anyones toes- Some subjects probably seem 'edgy', but he sticks to illustrating a point and doesnt try to score 'un-politically correct' points. The doofy looking CD cover might suggest otherwise.

The Terrence McKenna observation scores extra points in my book. McKenna is the second comming of Christ- Why wouldn't you cite Jesus II.

If he has more better material kicking around (like someone here suggested), I want it on a CD.

I had only learned that Joe Rogan did stand-up comedy when I heard him on a radio talk show about a year ago. He was quite funny on that appearance so when I found out about this CD I decided to pick it up. I can't say that this effort puts him among the ranks of the all-time great comedians, but I would certainly say that he is one of the funnier people out there currently. It isn't wall to wall laughs, but he has some very humorous takes on several issues and delivers the material well. This isn't one of those 'dude, ya gotta listen to this' CDs, and it won't become legendary, however, you can definitely listen to it a couple times through and draw some good laughs.

Joe has said that this album is "one of the few pieces of my own work that I can sit through without wanting to shut it off and run out of the building," but having listened to it, I feel as though this sentiment is more a function of his decreasing standards than one of objective quality. While I've never watched any of his horrible television shows for more than thirty seconds at a time, I've been a fan of Joe's standup for a good seven years now. I've seen him perform several times during the period when he claims he was too distracted by his television career to really focus on his act, and every single one of those times he had better material than is on this album. Some of the routines here date back to 2003, but whatever it is that's kept them kicking around so long, it's not quality. He's obviously still struggling to be as edgy and offensive as ever, he just isn't succeeding at much other than becoming a tragically predictable parody of every drug-addled conspiracy theorist who can't get through a conversation without citing Terrence McKenna. If this is what he's going to produce when he's focused solely on his standup act, then NBC needs to give him another three prime-time shows in a hurry before he turns into Woody Harrelson.

It's still better than Dane Cook, but I expected a lot more from Joe, and I would not recommend it to anyone who did not have a postcount in the tens of thousands on the monument to sycophantry that is his internet forum.