Joel McHale Live at the Wiltern

I'm proud to announce that I have introduced The Beefcake to his fourth greatest love.

His first is Robocop. His second is me. His third is deadlifting lots of weight - he's maxed out at six hundred odd pounds so far. Sometimes I want to just threaten random people with my arms crossed and him standing silently behind me with sunglasses on. I would be so badass.

Anyway his fourth greatest love is The Soup. I think if Joel McHale had a vagina The Beefcake would leave me.

Saturday night we had some way-up-in-the-balcony seats to see Joel live at the Wiltern theater in Koreatown (He made jokes about the safety of our cars, but the joke's on him - we walked). This one comic opened for him whose name I forgot, and then we saw K.P. Anderson, head writer for the show, who was pretty hilarious because he writes so much of the material that makes us laugh on the show every week.

And then came Joel. I admit I was skeptical. He doesn't write the material on the show - how will he do when he has to perform his own stuff?

The answer is, fucking awesome, that's how. The Beefcake may have laughed out one of his intestines.

At first I was nervous because the Soup-inspired material was not really that funny. It was several recycled jokes - Ryan is short, Tyra is self-centered, Bruce Jenner looks weird - but then he started talking about his family.

As soon as the stuff veered away from the predictable and became about his tightwad dad and his bizarro kid, it got so funny I was giggling waaaay past the punchline time.

It's a good lesson about comedy: make that shit personal. In half-hour increments with a blue-screen TV behind you and that one hot dude he keeps shooting, jokes about pop culture are funny, but on a stage in front of loads of people who have nothing to do but sit and watch you pace, you have to have something else going on. Joel had something else going on.

I also appreciate the LA jokes. Joel gave a much-appreciated shoutout to those of us in the cheap seats because he figured everybody on the floor probably got their shit for free from some industry connection. I was all "OMG that's totally me! I totally paid for my tickets! Joel's pointing at me because I'm not in the industry yet! Weeeee!"

Okay and here's a message to people who videotape or record the audio of a comedian's performance: It is just as fucking annoying to sit there with your goddamn camera on and its bright ass screen all up in my face at a comedy show as it is in the fucking movie theater. That said, I'm gonna find one of those recordings so I can listen to that shit again.