Greg Giraldo - Good Day To Cross A River (CD)

All Music Guide

There are times during Good Day to Cross a River when the audience is laughing so hard you know they're wiping tears out of their eyes. Standup comedian Greg Giraldo gets them to this point because of his unique pacing. He's a sleazy, disgruntled guy on burst mode, hammering his audience relentlessly with cynical, outrageous, and extremely funny observations. Great thing about Giraldo is that despite his fast pace and all the disgust and ire, he doesn't reach the temper tantrum/nervous breakdown point like Lewis Black, making an hour with the guy a pleasure. Course, Black probably wouldn't touch anything as distasteful as "The Floater," a reality show featuring paraplegics battling it out in a lake. He can be as gross as you'd expect a Howard Stern favorite to be, but his gross is more like National Lampoon's gross was in the '70s with biting wit and toilet humor riding side by side. "Terrorism" is a layered routine that suggests he's well aware of Lenny Bruce, while "Sexual Saturation..." goes in a primal direction and foams at the mouth while obsessing on naked mannequins. His versatile style brings into question why his appearances on Comedy Central's series of celebrity roasts brought him to fame. As funny as they are, they seemed canned and merely amusing when compared to this excellent performance. - David Jeffries, All Music Guide Read more Less