Tracy Morgan

“All the way from Kennedy Fried Chicken to Carnegie Hall,” Tracy Morgan took the stage last night for his showcase at the New York Comedy Festival. Here are some things I learned:

1. Tracy Morgan is not Tracy Jordan. Morgan goes to great lengths to separate himself from his television alter ego, and he thinks “TV is a wasteland” (”except 30 Rock,” he added as an afterthought, as if he’d remembered that he’s on it.) He silenced a heckler early in the set by shooting back, “This ain’t TV. I can hear you!” Later, he took a more direct line of attack: “May you get chlamydia tonight, mufucker!”

2. Tracy Morgan loves porno (”I beat my dick like it owes me money,” he proclaimed proudly). In fact, Morgan loves porno so much that he devoted a good 20 minutes of his hour-and-a-half set to the topic. And then another 15 minutes to a discussion of how it ruined his first marriage. A story about playing “rape” with his ex-wife looked destined for cringeworthiness, but it took a hilarious turn toward the absurd when Morgan described donning a ski mask, breaking into his house and getting distracted stealing his own stuff. (Oh, and catching his eldest son masturbating to his porno collection. Of course.)

3. Tracy Morgan’s “dick head looks like Darth Vader’s helmet.” As a whole, his penis “looks like R2-D2.” Morgan is full of contradictions, and apparently so is his penis.

4. Tracy Morgan has a foolproof plan for making sure his sons don’t stick around too long: “When your dick get bigger than mine, you’re out. You’re no longer my son, you’re a threat.” (”Want to play some basketball, Daddy?” he imagined his son asking. “Not with that big-ass dick I don’t!”)

5. The Incredible Hulk is not a superhero—he’s just a drunk white guy. (”White dudes are crazy,” Morgan explained. “They like to get drunk and fuck up the pinball machine.”) In one of the most inspired moments of the evening, Morgan imagined an overly sensitive Black Hulk trying—with no luck—to stay calm. “That not Hulk baby! Hulk take paternity test on Maury!” he roared while lumbering around the stage like Frankenstein’s monster. “Too many seeds in drugs! Hulk fuck up weed spot!”

Photo: Andrew Marantz

1. Moderator Virginia Heffernan (online media critic at The New York Times) wanted to push the notion that the Internet is fundamentally changing TV comedy, but the comedy writers were not having it. That impasse was reached within the first two minutes of the panel and then explored for the next two hours. “So, you guys really don’t think the Internet is changing the way you work?” said Heffernan. “No, not really,” said the writers. Over. And over.

2. “I don’t even have a computer,” said Jim Downey, and he was not joking. Having worked at Saturday Night Live since 1976, Downey is clearly qualified to talk about television writing. But as the last person in America to hold out on the computer fad, he had absolutely nothing to say about the “Internet” part.

3. The other three writers had some predictably cranky things to say about the Internet. Peter Tolan (Rescue Me) thinks it’s too democratic. Al Jean (The Simpsons) thinks it’s too negative. “Most of it is negative,” Rory Albanese (The Daily Show) agreed. “Except for the porn.”

4. The Simpsons producers were the ones who leaked the video of Homer trying to vote for Obama. I knew it!

5. Extrapolating from tonight’s four-person sample, we can deduce that 100 percent of comedy writers are white men; 75 percent of comedy writers dress in black sport coats; 75 percent of comedy writers wear black-rimmed glasses (the other 25 percent keep their glasses in the pocket of their sport coats); and 0 percent of comedy writers will read this post, because they don’t really care about the Internet.

Who’s brave enough to put Tina Fey on a magazine cover? On last night’s 30 Rock, it was Time Out New York. When Liz (Tina Fey) and Jenna (Jane Krakowski) showed up to a TONY photo shoot, it turned out that Liz was the only one willing to, uh, poop out a chicken on camera.

We applaud your dedication, Liz Lemon. Come defecate poultry on our cover any time.

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TONIGHT: 30 Rock (9:30pm on NBC)

How big is this week’s 30 Rock, nerds? First, daddy issues are served with a side of inanity for Tracy, who’s hanging with his illegitimate kid, and Jack, who’s looking for his real father. (Who’s his daddy? Alan Alda guest stars, so we’re betting all our night cheese on Hawkeye.) Meanwhile, Jenna and Liz fight over credit for a joke—and who gets to appear on the cover of a certain local magazine (hint: it rhymes with Mime Pout Dew Dork). Yeah, we want to go to there.

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TONY contributor Julia Allison corners Michael Kors after his show.

Neon is the new flower.

Then she bumps into 30 Rock’s Jane Krakowski. Don’t be surprised if her character, Jenna Maroney, starts sporting one of these Michael Kors hats.