Arts DEVO

One liners: The Bee Gees sound like a group of very talented musicians … being scalded to death.

I hate puns. But I love a good one-liner. The one above, typed by my PDX buddy Tim MidFi (aka Barefoot Honky, aka Corndog) onto a cyberspace wall we both share, was the first good one in a week filled with some good ones—some intentionally funny, most not.

It’s a nice day for a robot wedding.

MSNBC anchor talkin’ ’bout robots … Japanese female robots … sexy, Japanese, female robots.

Is Gallagher a comedian?

This one would have made me cry-laugh for an hour straight, but I didn’t want to give our sweet 22-year-old Calendar Editor Stacey Kennelly a complex as she wondered aloud who Gallagher was while typing the watermelon fetishist’s show listing (tonight, Feb. 18, El Rey Theatre) into the calendar. Normally, I would have ribbed her for having the audacity to be not as old as me, but after reading some of Gallagher’s “jokes” at gallaghersmash.com (“Well-known ana-wreck-sick Nicole Richie had to stop trying to breast feed her new baby when the poor little thing’s cheeks collapsed and mamma was treated for a hickie on her tittie”), her question had become obviously valid for many painful reasons beyond just the generational gap.

What is really funny—in an oh-my-god-why-is-this-happening-to-me-make-it-stop way—is Gallagher’s Uncle Earth alter ego at myspace.com/uncleearth. There are videos of his fuzzy head, covered in clown makeup to resemble decaying planet Earth, telling jokes (for children?) about things like Viagra and how kids should steal their folks’ Preparation H and apply it to the hole in the atmosphere. Go now into the darkness.

Not that my wife wouldn’t take care of a dead cat with effectiveness and dispatch, because she would. After making sure that I had no pulse, she would indeed dispose of the dead cat …

All right, that one’s a one-and-a-half liner, but I laughed hard when I first read Anthony Porter’s “Dead Cat” column this week, which has a bunch of other funny lines—see From the Edge, p. 55.

Four more beers! Four more beers! Our friendly neighborhood, internationally renowned brewery is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year with the release of four specialty anniversary brews. For the occasion, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. honcho Ken Grossman has teamed up with some of his fellow microbrewing pioneers for a series of collaborative beers to be released every couple of months in 750ml corked bottles. The first one, Fritz and Ken’s Ale, or Pioneers Stout, was brewed by Grossman and Anchor Steam owner Fritz Maytag and will come out in mid-March. Future releases include collaborations between Grossman and home-brewing authors Charlie Papazian and Fred Eckhart; Grossman and New Albion Brewery owner Jack McAullife; and the special Brewers Reserve Oak-Aged Ale, featuring a blend of Sierra Nevada’s Bigfoot, Celebration Ale and Pale Ale. All profits from the anniversary releases will be donated to various charities.

Visit the handsome anniversary Web site at www.sierra30.com for more goodness.

Hey, look at us Two toots from the CN&R horn: First, I’ve received a handful of e-mails asking how to enter our Fiction 59 contest online. The answer: Way up in the upper-righthand corner at newsreview.com/chico there’s a tiny ad for Fiction 59—click on that and you’re there. And, this Friday, Feb. 19, 9-11 p.m., at Duffy’s Tavern, we will be announcing the nominees for the 2010 CAMMIES live!