Neil Hamburger was in town for the latest iteration of his comedy act on Saturday, accompanied by opening act Sir Richard Bishop, an experimental guitarist. They performed at the intimate, dive-y, and unfortunately soon-to-be-defunct Bottom of the Hill.
I can’t claim to be familiar with Bishop’s work, but his solo act is somewhat akin to instrumental folk with the speed and precision of surf guitar. Not exactly my cup of tea — yet still mesmerizing to watch.
Neil Hamburger (aka Gregg Turkington) hit the stage with an opening song in his whiny, sad-sack voice, backed by a pre-recorded tape. The show ended in a similar way.
As usual, Neil switches between groan-inducing puns, knock knock jokes, and longwinded stories that serve as a sort of endurance test. The butt of his jokes tends to be washed-up musicians including his favorite targets, KISS and The Red Hot Chili Peppers. This time he had plenty of new material about DJ Diplo, The Foo Fighters, and The Rolling Stones. (“What did Mick Jagger say when he was asked if he’d change the diaper on Keith Richards? ‘Absolutely not, but Ron Wood!’”)
Exactly what makes a good “Neil Hamburger” joke is difficult to pin down. I think the crux of it is the subversion of expectations between the setup and punchline. For example, the punchline to a joke about Mick Jagger deleting DoorDash and Uber Eats from his phone had absolutely nothing to do with either Mick Jagger or The Rolling Stones.
On the 22-Fillmore Muni bus to the show, I found myself among not one but two groups of people heading to the same place. All of us, it turned out, were fans of Turkington from his On Cinema at the Cinema web series. On a day when the biggest event in the Bay Area was a World Cup game in Santa Clara, perhaps it’s no surprise that those going to see a fringe comedian would be such a self-selecting group of people.
