And if you don’t, well, that’s the first thing he’s tell you — and tell you, and tell you — in “Ben Bailey: Road Rage … and Accidental Ornithology
He has a pause-happy delivery that can grate as it slows the pace. It does not help that he runs a joke — funny or not — into the ground before moving on to the next one. An early bit about incorrectly filling out a job application has one good punch line to it, but many more duds around it. Throw enough darts and one’s bound to hit the target; maybe his aim was just off this particular night.
I laughed out loud just a couple of times, once when Bailey talked about his intolerance of the lactose-intolerant (“always farting and complaining”), and another about his paranoia dealing with Google’s predictive search function. On the latter, he obliterates the goodwill by simply taking the gag too far.
On the plus side, he’s pretty clean and tame compared to most stand-ups these days — at a PG-13 level, I’d say — but that also translates to lacking an edge.
The guy is super-likable. He’s just not super-funny. —Rod Lott
This article appears in May 25-31, 2011.