"Sorry to bother you, but I just have to tell you, I love your voice."
March 5, 2016 6:53 PM   Subscribe

 
Taylor Dayne demonstrates exactly how take a joke.
posted by dazed_one at 7:16 PM on March 5, 2016 [6 favorites]


How perfect that Tig's story about (sort of) making Taylor Dane uncomfortable ends with such a neat reversal. Really fun.
posted by Zephyrial at 7:36 PM on March 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


I heard this this morning on KCRW, but it's SO MUCH BETTER with Tig's facial expressions.
Thanks for posting!
posted by ApathyGirl at 7:46 PM on March 5, 2016


I have the weirdest crush on Tig Notaro. I just really love her voice.

(No joke, I came across the audio of her cancer standup and was smitten.)
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:55 PM on March 5, 2016 [4 favorites]


Tig Notaro plays the perfect 4 year old in that Goldilocks bit. "But why?"
posted by maryr at 8:01 PM on March 5, 2016


Her sense of timing is amazing. She just waits for it to land. And then waits a little longer. Leaving space seems like an easy thing to do in her hands. She's a supremely skillful comedian.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:03 PM on March 5, 2016 [5 favorites]


This was good.

Sometimes, to deal with insomnia, I tell myself a high-detail Goldilocks and the Three Bears (because I know how it ends so if I fall asleep it's okay). I had to add a Grandma Bear and an ER to get around the plot holes. I really want to hear Tig and Jon's version of the Three Little Pigs, because my Third Little Pig had to take mechanical engineering by correspondence while he lived at home.
posted by gingerest at 8:11 PM on March 5, 2016 [15 favorites]


gingerest, possibly of interest.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 8:17 PM on March 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


I love how uncomfortable Tig looks at the end. Like exactly how uncomfortable I would be if I got pulled up on stage while Tig Notaro was doing something. She's just so used to controlling a stage that she has no idea what to do when someone else starts owning it.
posted by beerperson at 9:04 PM on March 5, 2016 [2 favorites]


I love this story so much, and in mentioning it at Thanksgiving 2 years ago, learned that Tig was a HS friend of my brother's. Now my mom sends me articles whenever she comes across a mention of Tig.
posted by Navelgazer at 9:06 PM on March 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


Sometimes, to deal with insomnia, I tell myself a high-detail Goldilocks and the Three Bears (because I know how it ends so if I fall asleep it's okay). I had to add a Grandma Bear and an ER to get around the plot holes. I really want to hear Tig and Jon's version of the Three Little Pigs, because my Third Little Pig had to take mechanical engineering by correspondence while he lived at home.

Thank you for this. I'm sorry about your insomnia, but that fact that this comment exists makes me inexplicably happy.
posted by greermahoney at 10:06 PM on March 5, 2016 [5 favorites]


I love Tig Notaro and I love her Taylor Dayne story. It was also fun watching her nag the comic telling the Goldilocks story in the Conan clip. It's only after watching those videos in reverse order that I realized that the punchline in both clips is the same.

In the Taylor Dayne story, the actual punchline is that her friend Kyle, in his attempt to hide the fact that he's filming Tig again confronting Taylor Dayne, has a pretend conversation on his cell phone with the (fictional) most difficult person in the world. Tig builds this whole Taylor Dayne story up, but what it all comes down to is how Kyle (not her) looks crazy.

And then, on Conan, Tig Notaro is the most difficult person in the world to share a simple fable with. Because come on, if the porridge was too hot then someone was just there and IT'S NOT SAFE.

So the punchline in those two very different jokes, with two very different setups, is actually the same. It's all about the most difficult person in the world to have a conversation with. I may just be honing in on this because I'm currently divorcing the most difficult person in the world to have a conversation with, and you probably all realized it already, but I'm very pleased with myself for recognizing it so I'm going to be all smug and pedantic about pointing it out.

You're welcome.
posted by mudpuppie at 10:35 PM on March 5, 2016 [9 favorites]


I love Tig Notaro. She's just awesome. I'd never seen the Conan clip, but it's hilarious. The sight gag works so well.
posted by teponaztli at 11:20 PM on March 5, 2016


I've never heard of or seen Tig Notaro before today. My life is better for having learned she exists.
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:23 PM on March 5, 2016 [3 favorites]


Joey: Do yourself a gigantic favour and listen to her album "Live" and the documentary "Tig" on the same day, you will be a different person afterwards. I love Tig so very much.
posted by Cosine at 11:33 PM on March 5, 2016 [5 favorites]


Cosine: I downloaded Live as soon as you shared the comment, just finished it and I'm sitting here, mouth agape. What a remarkable performance. Thank you for the tip.
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:12 AM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]


The documentary has amazing backstory, I have goosebumps now just thinking about it.
posted by Cosine at 12:23 AM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]


I'll find that tomorrow. I swear I had stuff to do tonight but it was totally worth not doing it.
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:25 AM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


Yayyy!

Tig Notaro! One of my favorite hilarious people and awesome human bean!

My story isn't as good as Tig's, but she is featured in it, but now I am the fan with all the anxiety...

I saw her perform last year in Santa Fe at the Lensic... finally! Her set was great, recent stories about her upcoming marriage and moving past her medical adventures with cancer and c. diff and many other comedic tales... Although I recognized some of her material from the late '90s when she always carried an acoustic guitar onstage (not really playing it, not a musical act), but she has really honed her craft in the meantime and knew how to work the room like a master. She had one of those Comedy Central half hour spotlight features way back then... I was instantly a fan. Nobody else in that glut of stand-up comedy on cable was doing anything like she was, and it really struck a chord with me, but it took me nearly 20 years to see her perform live.

For the last few years I had become a regular listener of her podcast Professor Blastoff (which she gave up last year due to busy schedules, but the archives are well worth it - Kyle Dunnigan came up with a ridiculous game show for the guests of the podcast based on Punky Brewster, called "Name That Punky!" which is excellent). Tig was diagnosed with C. diff. which nearly killed her, then her mom died... and THEN she was diagnosed with cancer. In the middle of all this, she announced her cancer diagnosis on stage at Largo as a last-minute decision in front of an audience of friends, because she hadn't talked much about what she was going through and didn't know what else to say as a comedian at that point... but what a show! It was a cathartic performance. She survived all of it, made an album from her performance at Largo, made a movie about the whole journey, got engaged, all through the course of the few years of Professor Blastoff's run. I mean it's worth hearing how she and her two friends and co-hosts go through it all together, but you'll stay for Tiggleby .. and Kyle's food purse ... and David Huntsinger's failed attempts to be the adult comedian in the room.

Her timing and presence onstage with an audience is *amazing* and definitely needs to be experienced in person to appreciate it fully. Her patience and generous use of silence is a huge inspiration for me when performing long-form improv, how everything falls in place and lands just right, just as it should if you can sit with silence and give it room to breathe and let the tension build. Her older material was pretty good already IMO, but she got *way* better with time and experience. I got the sense that she was having a blast being on the road and performing again, but in a tornado of publicity at the same time. She was so friggin confident, happy and calm. I mean, she had just survived C. diff and cancer, and she was newly engaged and on tour again, doing her job like it was the only thing that mattered in that moment.

So, I met up with Tig after the show at the merch table in the lobby, which she was working all by herself while a crowd formed as people pour out of the theater in a beeline towards her. She had been on the road for a while and all she had left to sell from her tour were a handful of women's t-shirts and some posters from her previous tour... so I bought a poster... I was honestly pretty starstruck and nervous after all this time knowing her life and work, and blurted out that I also lived through cancer, that I loved her way of bringing her difficult experience and vulnerability into her work while she brought her fans along for the ride, plus I said I am a "Blastronaut" (podcast listener), and I counted myself a fan for nearly the whole two decades of her comedy career so far... and I'm kinda surprised I didn't mention I loved her voice. That would not be a lie.

She wrote on the poster, at my request, "First of all, congrats!" and then scrawled below it, "Tig's cutest."

Here's proof!

I remember hearing her tell the story on her podcast of how she met Taylor Dayne, and all I could think is... someday, I won't feel silly for being a total goofball when you sign my CD, or let's say poster, after a show... or taking a selfie!
posted by krinklyfig at 12:26 AM on March 6, 2016 [13 favorites]


Oh christ... It's David Huntsberger who helped host Professor Blastoff. David Huntsinger is apparently not a comedian at all but is in fact a jazz pianist. I mean it's nearly 2am here...
posted by krinklyfig at 12:45 AM on March 6, 2016


The story that she tells involving middle school and a song by the Rolling Stones is also hilarious.
posted by 4ster at 3:32 AM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


The youtube video was posted by Taylor Dayne. That's how easy she is to run into.
posted by Obscure Reference at 5:48 AM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]


That's a pretty good Stewart Lee impression. :-)
posted by humboldt32 at 6:00 AM on March 6, 2016


Tig is the greatest and I love her. If she comes to your town, do yourself a solid and get tickets.
posted by palomar at 6:44 AM on March 6, 2016


The Goldilocks bit is funny despite Conan's best attempts to ruin it by interjecting and rephrasing what Notaro just said.
posted by mcmile at 8:40 AM on March 6, 2016


I'd love to see her live, and remain terribly sad that she had to cancel her appearance on the 2014 JoCoCruise.
posted by uberchet at 3:59 PM on March 7, 2016


This story is totally unsafe!
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:00 PM on March 7, 2016


In the middle of all this, she announced her cancer diagnosis on stage at Largo as a last-minute decision in front of an audience of friends, because she hadn't talked much about what she was going through and didn't know what else to say as a comedian at that point... but what a show!

A chunk of that show is in the documentary TIG (streaming on Netflix, you have no excuse!) and it also includes material about her mother's death.

"After we buried her, the hospital sent my mother a questionnaire.

To see how her stay at the hospital went.

Mmmm. not- Not great."
posted by phearlez at 6:13 AM on March 8, 2016 [2 favorites]


« Older Seven miles deep, the ocean is still a noisy place   |   Bangor Maine Police Department Facebook Page Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments