Ode to Dane Cook

(The following is an excerpt from an email conversation between myself and my old runnin' buddy from Handsome Boy Modelling School, Tall Mike.)

I saw Dane Cook on his ridiculous HBO special, and last night he had a 5 minute bit on some entertainment show where he basically says how he's not nervous about his HBO special even though he's doing something "no one else has ever done before". What is that, you might ask? He was using a round stage with people all around him, instead of a typical stage with everyone on one side and he's in front of them, 'cause standard stage layout is for amateurs, not pros like Dane Cook. Like, what? You fucking invented that? Like, if no one had done that before, I guess they built a custom auditorium just for his stage for the first time ever, right? I mean, what's $800 million fucking dollars for one night with Dane, am I right? No one has ever watched something in a circle before, right? Like, the Coliseum in Rome looks like a fucking ring from 2000 years ago but it's not, it's just some shitty pretend ring because Dane Fucking Cook apparently *invented* it.

And even if he did invent it, it's not like a cure for cancer.

Dane Cook: "Man, I'm so nervous about the show tonight, I changed the auditorium layout slightly, it's going to revolutionize live performance."

Dane Cook Fan #1: "Wow! It's in a circle! I have never seen such magnificence before!"

Dane Cook Fan #2: "I mean, like, if he was just in front of us, I'd be, like, 'okay, that's sorta funny' but all around us it's like, 'damn! That's some funny shit!'"

Like, are you fucking kidding me?

It's not just that he's not that funny. It's not just that everyone in his audience thinks he's the funniest man alive. It's that *he* thinks he's funny. After every joke he looks at the camera with this look on his face like he just said the funniest thing known to man, and just realized it, and was suddenly proud of unleashing such a funny, funny joke.

But the joke he just told and is so proud of himself over was the one about when you just need to have a good cry. Which is fucking ridiculous, because the word on the street is that he's a man. Man up, buddy. Like, don't spend 15 minutes on "needing a good cry". I'm not saying I've never cried. I'm saying I've never needed a good cry, because I am a man. Even a homosexual man would be like, "Dude, man up there buddy."

Yeah, I saw the commercial for that Dane Cook movie and I think I'd rather watch Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants III: Kelly's Revenge. (I assume there's at least one Kelly in a movie like that.) Of course I'm sure he thought he invented movies too.

Will someone explain to me what the attraction is?