Sure! Why not! A sharp-eyed reader tipped us off to the lastest one.

What is it about Dane Cook that bothers the chatterati? Come with us one more time as yet another sputtering critic (this time it’s Slate’s Bryan Curtis) tries desperately to say something really bad about Dane Cook while trying to appear as though he’s actually saying something good about him!

There’s an inherent problem with Cook’s act, however: There’s doesn’t (sic) seem to be anything at stake. Not every comedian needs to be explicating a high-minded moral code (like, say, Bill Hicks) or a blessedly mundane one (like Jerry Seinfeld). But every great comic must use his act to create friction—- some value must be rubbing up against another value. When Cook begins to crack wise, he seems merely to be describing the benign hang-ups of the college/post-college set rather than actually weighing in on them…

We interrupt this screed to interpret: With Dane Cook, “there doesn’t seem to be anything at stake.&quot’; Jerry Seinfeld, however, is “blessedly mundane.” To rephrase it: Seinfeld– good. Dane Cook– bad.

Back to the piece, the author cites an example of Cook “merely to be describing the benign hang-ups of the college/post-college set”:

…In Retaliation, for example, Cook confesses that he desperately wants to own a pet monkey. He would give the monkey a sword and dress him in a suit of armor, he says. “How pumped would you be driving home from work knowing that some place in your house that there’s a monkey you would battle?”

Is it just us, or does that sound vaguely… alternative? Close your eyes, toss in a few $50 adjectives and work in a Dark Messiah of Might and Magic reference and the bit/concept might fit comfortably into the set of Patton Oswalt or Brian Posehn. (Note: Not a slam on either comic, just an observation and one that, we’re sure you’ll agree, for the sake of argument, is not that much of a stretch.)

Why do we do it? Why do we waste the ink defending Dane Cook? Well, we’re not so much defending Cook as we’re trying to solve the mystery of why some folks in the media are so hot and bothered about him.

And why are they so interested in a world where every comic is Bill Hicks? Imagine their universe: Every comic is “explicating a high-minded moral code” and “must use his act to create friction.” It would be about as dynamic and as attractive and as commercially viable as today’s folk music scene. (Oh, sure, they say that not all comics must be that way, but they so often cite Hicks– and, to a lesser extent, Bruce and Carlin– as their ideal, and they so often say the vilest things about Gallagher and Whitney and Cook– that we have a hard time believing them.)

Face it. These folks just despise comics. Especially Dane Cook. They know damn well that they can’t be seen as despising all comics. So they fixate on one or two or three (Larry the Cable Guy, Cook, Gallagher– all of whom are dismissed in this essay) and weakly praise a few others while assembling the case against the main target.

To use a music analogy: The world (and the music store) would be a boring and limiting place if every artist was Yitzhak Perlman. Or every artist was Ella Fitzgerald. Or every musician/writer was a slight variation on Bob Dylan. The same can be said of the world of standup comedy. The insistence of these folks that we all be like their ideal comic is childish, to be kind. The orders are clear: Everyone must be like their hero(es). If you don’t measure up (indeed, if you’re perceived as not even trying to measure up), you’re somehow less of an artist.