Last week, comic Arj Barker released his debut comedy album, LYAO as a CD/DVD and standalone DVD. The culmination of a 15-year career in stand-up, it finds Barker providing observational jokes about everything from gay marriage to scientology. His sarcastic style of humor and ability to naturally portray a dumb guy really distinguishes his comedic style. Perhaps most famous for his role as Dave, Jemaine and Bret’s dim-witted friend on the HBO show Flight of the Conchords, Barker also co-wrote The Marijuana-logues with Doug Benson and Tony Camin. He phoned in this afternoon from his Northern California home to talk about the new CD/DVD, whose title stands for “laugh your ass off.”
So what inspired you to name all the songs on your new album/DVD with letters?
Just to keep with the theme of the title, which means “laugh your ass off,” which I changed from “laugh my ass off.” The idea of the DVD is that you can laugh your ass off watching it.
Yes, because you have already laughed your ass off.
I don’t even have an ass to laugh off. Then if I was laughing my head off, I’d just be a torso. It’s keeping with that theme of texting and internet abbreviations. We basically hired a 13-year-old girl to do the DVD design.
This article appears in Jan 27 – Feb 2, 2010.
