Neil Hamburger

Do you know Neil Hamburger? I think he's very funny. He writes such cutting jokes. I'm a fan of characters and I like things that are a little beyond reality. I like a little razzle-dazzle. Have you ever seen him? He's this guy named Gregg Turkington, who's this cool hipster guy who plays this old vaudeville kind of salty, greasy [guy] ? he wears a suit and tells these one-liners, as people usually boo or are confused. He has a show at Spaceland once a month. And he was just on tour with Tim and Eric.

Do you know Neil Hamburger? I think he's very funny. He writes such cutting jokes. I'm a fan of characters and I like things that are a little beyond reality. I like a little razzle-dazzle. Have you ever seen him? He's this guy named Gregg Turkington, who's this cool hipster guy who plays this old vaudeville kind of salty, greasy [guy] ? he wears a suit and tells these one-liners, as people usually boo or are confused. He has a show at Spaceland once a month. And he was just on tour with Tim and Eric.

Comedy, as Steve Martin once remarked, is not pretty. In the case of Neil Hamburger, a thirtysomething comedian from Culver City, it isn't even funny. Though he spends 360 nights a year doing stand-up, the hapless comic hasn't been able to master--or even vaguely come to grips with--the art of getting laughs from a live audience. And yet "America's Funnyman," as he calls himself, may well be the hottest underground comic in the country.

Travel the globe this week in the comfort of a darkened theater. The first stop is Ireland, courtesy of the American Cinematheque's Aero Theatre, where the country's premier filmmaker, Jim Sheridan, is scheduled to discuss his career and screen his current film, "Brothers," and his well-regarded 2003 drama " In America" on Friday. Two more well-regarded Sheridan films -- with Daniel Day-Lewis -- keep us in the Emerald Isle on Saturday: 1989's "My Left Foot," for which Day-Lewis received his first Academy Award, as painter Christy Brown, and 1993's "In the Name of the Father," for which the actor earned an Oscar nomination as a man unjustly accused of an IRA pub bombing.

It's a quintessential only-in-L.A. story, one that combines sex, drugs, rock and roll, glamour, money, celebrity, hang gliding, health food and a homegrown spirituality. The new documentary "The Source Family" looks at the group of the same name, who for a brief moment in the early 1970s seemed to achieve their ideal of radical utopian experimental living. The Source Family was led by Jim Baker, a successful Los Angeles restaurateur who came to be known as Father Yod. A judo expert, World War II hero and alleged bank robber (who was said to have twice killed men with his bare hands)

Travel the globe this week in the comfort of a darkened theater. The first stop is Ireland, courtesy of the American Cinematheque's Aero Theatre, where the country's premier filmmaker, Jim Sheridan, is scheduled to discuss his career and screen his current film, "Brothers," and his well-regarded 2003 drama " In America" on Friday. Two more well-regarded Sheridan films -- with Daniel Day-Lewis -- keep us in the Emerald Isle on Saturday: 1989's "My Left Foot," for which Day-Lewis received his first Academy Award, as painter Christy Brown, and 1993's "In the Name of the Father," for which the actor earned an Oscar nomination as a man unjustly accused of an IRA pub bombing.

Cash honored at Viper Room Shooter Jennings paid tribute to his godfather, Johnny Cash, on Friday night at the Viper Room, a fitting stage for the impromptu memorial of the late, great singer. A decade ago, Cash performed his most intimate set at the Sunset Boulevard nightclub, and Jennings, whose father, Waylon, was one of Cash's great comrades, performed the Waylon/Cash hit, "Ain't No Good Chain Gang." Surely, heaven's got room for one more outlaw....

COMEDY WTF Live Acerbic, idiosyncratic comedian Marc Maron brings his popular "WTF" podcast to the stage to celebrate the release of his new album, "This Has to Be Funny. " As on the twice-weekly Internet show, Maron will riff and converse with his guests, who include Molly Shannon, Neil Hamburger and Jim Earl. Steve Allen Theater, 4773 Hollywood Blvd., L.A. 8 p.m. $10. (323) 666-4268. http://www.steveallentheater.com MUSIC Allah-Las The nostalgic local act, which weaves the sounds and feeling of mid-century California into its repertoire, continues its Tuesday night residency.

With thirtysomethings neck-deep in nostalgia, it's unsurprising that oddball sports like dodge ball and kickball have made a comeback among a certain set of college-radio-listening, thrift-store-clothes-wearing grown-ups. After all, 30 isn't the new 20, it's the new 12. Add to that a decidedly more adult pastime that combines the shamelessness of a Roman bacchanal with "Revenge of the Nerds"-era aesthetics and you have a fair description of L.A.'

Brooke Shields has been a talk show guest dozens of times during her three decades in Hollywood, including on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" and "The Late Show With David Letterman." But not until this summer, when the actress appeared on "Tom Green Live," had she cursed like a sailor on the air, gone without full makeup and sung with Siberian huskies while waiting for the host's Internet connection to come back up. "It's kind of cool being on the cutting edge," Shields said.

Comedy, as Steve Martin once remarked, is not pretty. In the case of Neil Hamburger, a thirtysomething comedian from Culver City, it isn't even funny. Though he spends 360 nights a year doing stand-up, the hapless comic hasn't been able to master--or even vaguely come to grips with--the art of getting laughs from a live audience. And yet "America's Funnyman," as he calls himself, may well be the hottest underground comic in the country.

MAY 23-24: Peter Murphy. House of Blues. 23: The Pussycat Dolls. Roxy. 24: Bombchild, Ten Seconds Down, Public Recipe, Heavy 7. Roxy. 24: Something Corporate. House of Blues Anaheim. 25: El Hefe, the Ambulance, Stolen Babies, Step. Roxy. 25: Kenny Chesney, Montgomery Gentry, Jamie O'Neal, Phil Vassar. Glen Helen Blockbuster Pavilion. 25: Peter Murphy. House of Blues Anaheim. 25: Phil Lesh & Friends. Greek Theatre. 25: Rusted Root. House of Blues.