Comedy review | Tracy Morgan: Sexually graphic routine is just awkward

Tracy Morgan had a one-track mind during his Excuse My French stand-up comedy show last night at the Capitol Theatre.

For an hour, the controversial comic talked mostly about his sexual interests in graphic detail. "I'm a pervert. At least I know that," Morgan said in his defense. "I'm feeling sexual. That's why I talk about this."

Some of the material was actually funny in the sense thatyou couldn't believe Morgan had just said that. After the first half-hour, though, the shock had worn off, and the rambling shtick came across as sick. One extended chunk dealt with children who had developmental disabilities, the same material that got Morgan in trouble in 2011.

The less-than-full house, which gave Morgan a standing ovation when he came out, was clearly divided by the time the show ended. To illustrate the point, the woman to my left guffawed at most everything Morgan said, while the woman to my right barely chuckled at all.

After one raunchy bit, Morgan said, "I told that joke in Minnesota, and a women's group formed afterwards."

If there had been self-deprecating quips of that nature, maybe Morgan's show would have been more enjoyable.

Morgan did some rhyming, and one thing that we can repeat is, "At the first sign of trouble, you don't bail out; you work it out. That's old-school love." That's about as profound as Morgan got.

Known for his celebrity impressions, Morgan stuck to musicians. He decently sang verses of songs by New Edition and Michael McDonald, among others. He did the first verses of Michael Jackson's You Are Not Alone straight, but incorporated the "Annie, are you OK" chorus from Smooth Criminal in a particularly gross joke about an ex-girlfriend.

In addition, there were strange comments about Jackson and about Morgan not voting despite thinking that the state of the world is dark. These weren't strong jokes; they seemed more like asides.

Morgan had a weird vibe from the start when he came out and said, "Hello Cleveland. All these empty seats.I thought this was sold out."

Maybe the peoplewere across the street at Wicked.

At the end, he said, "I'm out, Cleveland."

Now maybe that was intentional. After all, Morgan, 44, has done some quality comedic acting on Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock, so to deliberately say the wrong city might be another funny moment. Yet given what he did in between, it just came across as another awkward comment.

"I came from a broken home. I turned out all right," Morgan said early on, to nervous laughter. Toward the end, he correctly noted, "Y'all are judging the (bleep) out of me. I went too far."