Like a fire, No Cure For Cancer starts slow and smoldering. Give it time. Like his cigarettes, Denis Leary catches fire, sweeping across healthy habits, vegetarians and rehab. If backlash to political correctness sprouted in the early nineties, then Leary was Johnny Appleseed.



Politics aside, if you ever had wood paneling at home or slid across the bench seat of a station wagon, his piece on growing-up in a working-class family hits home.



No time for the timid here. At his brutal best, Leary froths at the mouth as he paces the stage, getting more and more worked-up about the daily inanities we all suffer daily.



What most separates Leary from others is simple. Leary doesn't dodge death; he gets in its face and chokes it.