From the New York Post 's PAGE SIX, Dec 15, 1999 :

Grammy grinch torments 'SNL' star

SOME call him the next Andy Kaufman -- but that's not what "Saturday Night Live" star Colin Quinn calls comedian Michael Portnoy. Quinn wanted to deck Portnoy at the downtown Luna Lounge where Quinn was booked for a longer than usual set the other night. Portnoy is the guy who disrupted the 1997 Grammys by leaping onstage during Bob Dylan's performance and dancing with the words "Soy Bomb" splashed across his chest. Unimpressed by Quinn's new schtick, he leaped on stage and ignored pleas to leave. As Quinn's rapport with the audience weakened, Portnoy began to taunt him and suggest that he quit. "Quinn was bombing anyway," said an audience member. "The audience seemed to be with Soy Bomb." By the time comics Marc Maron and Rick Shapiro could get Portnoy off stage, Quinn had lost his momentum. "The word was that Quinn went looking for Portnoy to punch him out but he had already left," said an eyewitness. "Quinn was angry. It didn't sound like he thought Portnoy was a comic genius." PAGE SIX reached Portnoy, during a particularly lucid moment. "I did fold and I chewed!" he proclaimed. "And I dropped a lug and put him in the stove! I showed you his peels, my good girl!" Quinn couldn't be reached.

"Total recall", by Gia Kourlas, Time Out NY, March 11-18, 1999
(re: Koosil Ja Hwang's Dance Kumikokimoto)

"While much of memoryscan features the dancers in typical family situations (at the dinner table or taking a golf lesson), there are also some strange, almost surreal moments. In one scene, Portnoy leans back in an office chair holding a cigar; in the background is a video showing Jerry Lewisin The Errand Boy. For the next few minutes, Portnoy mimics every one of Lewis's moves; words flash by on screen, such as MONKEY MOUTH, LEAN FORWARD, SWIRL RIGHT, SUCK CIGAR. For pure performance value, it's irresistible, but it also paints a vulnerable picture: you can't help conjuring up the image of Portnoy as a boy, perhaps practicing those very moves for an invisible audience in his parents' living room. Here, the audience learns less about his ethnicity than what excites and pushes him as a performer: the playful, choreographed movement sensibility of Lewis."

Time Out NY (June 5-12, '96):

"It's tempting to tag him as the bad boy of comedy, but it's not that easy. Whether he's streaking through the Luna Lounge and stuffing his package into a jar or taunting host Marc Maron, his comedy astonishes but defies explanation. All Portnoy will say is, "The humor moment is a juxtaposition between the expected and the unexpected." Whatever. He personifies raw talent. As Maron called out to him from the stage, "It's beyond me, but for some reason you're necessary."

Village Voice, Feb. 4, '97, by Deborah Jowitt
re: Scott Heron's The Goat Story @ P.S. 122

"Michael Portnoy plays an extraordinary anguished guardian angel, contorting his pale body, devouring a flower, mouthing terrible truths, and having little fits of craziness amid the audience."

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