Stand-Up Comedy Review: “Patton Oswalt: My Weakness is Strong”

In many ways I fit into the classic definition as a geek, but not all of my geekly obsessions are the usual suspects. Yes, there’s Star Trek and comic books and Buffy the Vampire Slayer and fan fiction and all of the other things that make you picture me pushing up my taped up horn rimmed glasses whenever I talk about them (for the record, my glasses are neither taped nor horn rimmed, they are quite stylish). But among my chief obsessions in life is something that few people think of when they think of geeks, and that’s stand-up comedy. It started early, when I was a kid, ironically enough in the 80’s, when stand-up comedy wasn’t very good. I watched MTV’s Half-Hour Comedy Hour, VH1’s Stand-Up Spotlight, A&E’s An Evening at the Improv, and I rented every stand-up concert that I could find at the video store. I will admit, my early tastes weren’t very sophisticated. It’s true, I used to like Gallagher. There, I said it, I feel better now. And then one day I rented “Carlin at Carnegie”, and my world changed forever. George Carlin continued to be a hero of mine up into adulthood and still is today, influencing my current tastes in comedy still. Thankfully the 80’s ended, and stand-up comedy got a lot better and continues to do so. Smarter, darker, more edgy, more relevant. So for this feature, I’ll be reviewing some of my favorite stand-up concerts from today and yesterday. And for my first review, I’m going to start with the latest special from my favorite comedian working today, Patton Oswalt.

Oddly enough one of the main themes of this special is something that longtime fans of Patton never would have guessed he could ever touch on, impending fatherhood. Once the angry, nerdy bridge troll of comedy who once lamented on how it’s not okay for people to even be holding babies in his presence, because they are essentially tiny shirtless humans with bags of their own crap tied around their waists, this is major news. Patton informs the audience of the news in his own unique way (“I hate, I hate, it is all I am capable of, you knew that when you took my seed woman!”) and then laments on how much he’ll miss the drugs that he has to give up. Far from dulling his edge, Patton’s new found mature and responsible lifestyle only gives him a new perspective on the world, one that he can apply his ever sharp wit to. There are several more bits in the special that showcase the more domestic side of our favorite height challenged misanthrope. There’s one about trick-or-treaters coming to his house, and another about how in the process of house hunting, he and his wife came across the morning aftermath of an orgy. All of it is hilarious.

Patton tackles religion in this special as well, explaining it as a way for the weaker of primitive man to keep the strong from killing them, by promising sky cake in the afterlife. It’s a simple analogy that goes a long way toward explaining the way religion is used to control people, and also to point out the ridiculousness in killing each other over the details of whatever sky dessert happens to await us in the world beyond (It’s not sky cookies, it’s sky CAKE! I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you all!).

And of course, Patton touches on politics as well. His legendary vitriol against George W. Bush makes a brief appearance as he segues into talking about Obama/Biden, and how the White House has become the setting for an 80’s buddy cop movie. He also laments on the possibility of traveling back through time just a scant ten years so he can blow his own mind by telling himself that we in the future have elected a black man with the middle name of a dictator as president of the United States. Crazy.

But even with the old standbys of politics and religion, I think Patton truly shines when he’s relating more personal experiences from his life. His insights and his twist on things are always funny, and always thought provoking. The man’s edge remains fully intact.

My Netflix Rating: Four out of Five Stars