STAGE TIME Magazine: The Unbookables, Mitch Fatel

Super Retardo is the exact
equivalent of saying, "That was
one of the best comedy shows
I've ever been to." If you have
you ever said that, you must
buy Mitch Fatel's Super Retardo
CD and dare to tell me it
doesn't feel like you are at the
show where it was recorded.

I have heard a few of Fatel's
bits on Sirius Satellite Radio's
comedy stations and instantly
became a fan. He had his own
identity and he sounds like no
one else out there.

His material is cleverly hilari-
ous. The only thing that
surmounts his actual material,
is his wittiness.

Super Retardo contains some
crowd work bits that could only
be perceived as lucky, coin-
cidental or set up, to a
non-comedian. Right place,
right time? But we all know a
good comedian makes the
comedy happen and doesn't
hope for it. I have listened to
Super Retardo over and over
and I keep laughing at the
same parts, while continually
finding more to laugh at.

If going to a show is out
of the question, either because
you live in Wabash, Montana
or if you don't want to pay the
hefty cover at some of the
clubs, buy this CD. Then,
gather some friends, have
them each buy their own
Super Retardo CD and then fight
over whose copy you will open
and listen to first.

While the others can become
"Gem Mint 5" collectibles, it's
hard to measure who is the
funniest comedian, but give
this guy a little more air time
during the day and he will most
certainly become a household
name.

-Mike Petro

pump blood through his cheese-encrusted arteries
or forcing himself to eat broccoli, Mr. Hinty has
found himself in dire need of help. A $25,000
stomach stapling surgery could be the only thing
to save him, and unfortunately, he's not good for
the money.

But God bless his congested heart. It's thanks to
his lack of self-control that we get the first CD
released under Doug Stanhope's Unbookables
label, a brand he created to help promote comics
too dirty, too controversial, or simply too incom-
petent at promotion to get work. Morbid Obscenity
packs in nearly 80 minutes of comedy from
Stanhope, Sean Rouse, Andy Andrist, and Lynn
Shawcroft, and all proceeds go to benefit Mr.
Hinty's gastric bypass.

Stanhope, not exactly "unbookable" himself,
hosts and headlines the event. After some
plucking by Randy "Banjo Ghost" McClearly (who
also provided musical accompaniment on
Stanhope's last album, Deadbeat Hero),
Stanhope brings up the night's first comic,
a half-drunk Andy Andrist.

He holds his set down for about 10 minutes with
some very funny material about immigration, the
army, and homelessness, before eventually
falling apart and drunkenly muttering "I want to
go take a nap." He ends strong, if about five
minutes overtime, with a morbid bit about
choosing how to die.

Shawcroft breaks up a show otherwise made up of
substance-abusing lunatics with a brief set. I
hadn't heard Lynn's act before, and her low-key
delivery and relatively clean act sticks out like a
sore thumb amidst the other comics on the disc,
but there are laughs to be had. Fans of Bonnie
McFarlane will likely appreciate her set.

She's followed by Rouse, the half-crippled maniac
whose star has been rising since his appearance
on Dave Attel's Insomniac Tour. Rouse is an
animal, as usual, and he delivers a fantastic set
in which he tells of his arrest earlier that week
after urinating on a transformer during a blackout.

"Whenever I party, I turn into a retard, pretty
much. I need someone there," he explains.
"They left me alone for about five seconds. A
little too long." Rouse, who suffers from
rheumatoid arthritis, goes on a little tirade that
starts out fun and then gets a just little too real.
"Where's my fucking show? For the cost of that
surgery we could have gotten me the good
medicine for two years." It's as funny as it is just
uncomfortable, and Rouse's set could be the
highlight of the disc.

After a brief, but admirable performance by Hinty
(who is not a comedian), Stanhope takes the
stage to wrap things up. Despite his recent
announcement that he will be running for
president in '08, Stanhope's half-hour set packs
none of his usual social commentary, instead
opting to discuss his new girlfriend who he
describes as "a bald, crazy girl, fresh out of a
mental institution," before degrading into pure
raunch for about five minutes, and then telling
the story of how he accidentally picked up some
black hookers who beat Andy Andrist with belts
and forced him to renounce his white heritage.

Cause be damned, Morbid Obscenity is a great
little slice of dark comedy and drunken
debauchery. Rouse and Stanhope's appearances
alone are worth the price of admission. Hopefully
more of Doug's friends get sick so we can hear
more from the all-too-amotivational Unbookables
in the future.

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