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| Robin Van Swank |
There are gifted physical
comics, and then there are the dudes who make a good set great just by virtue
of looking ungainly and weird. Brian Posehn is revered in comedy circles for
his affably lumbering stoner/geek/metalhead persona, his contributions to the
Comedians
of Comedy tour and
The Sarah Silverman Program, and his tendency to
deal in a rarefied, top-caliber juvenilia. (Posehn's last album was given the
obvious yet somehow understated title
Fart and Wiener Jokes, which is
sort of like calling Black Sabbath's
Master of Reality something like
Guitar
Riffs and Ominous Lyrics.) But Posehn earned a lot of his early adherents
through his supporting appearances on the legendary sketch-comedy institution
Mr.
Show, and some of his funniest moments simply relied on standing around and
fulfilling the important job of looking like Brian Posehn.
His Thursday night
show at Acme, the first of a stand that lasts through Saturday night, displayed
that particular skill. In a set heavy on material from a year-old album,
getting to see him deliver it in person gave twice-heard jokes enough added
gawky-homunculus presence to make it feel like this was the real intended
context for them.
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| Robin Van Swank |
Throwing around terms like
"ungainly" and "gawky" might seem a bit uncalled for, but mostly because Posehn
does a much more expert job at describing just how damned odd he looks. (One
memorable self-assessment: "I look like a bunch of farts put on a man
costume.") Much of Posehn's comedy hinges on this particular conceit, your classic
comedy tactic of turning a curse into a strength, whether he's running down a
list of innocuous things he'd be socially ostracized for doing because of his
looks (talking to children; digging holes in the middle of the night; walking
into a club's VIP section and shouting "Someone's gettin' fucked tonight!") or
taking the premise of scaring off burglars with a samurai sword to increasingly
uncomfortable conclusions (nude, screaming, wearing a baby mask). Stomping his
6'6" frame around as a generous gut peeked out from under an Iron Maiden
t-shirt, he stalked across the stage in a way that made it look way too small
for him.
While his best material
focused on his own weirdo-galoot appearance, Posehn's personal pop-culture
obsessions kept the set multi-dimensional, with the inevitable forays into metal,
horror films, and geek-culture touchstones. But where your typical second-rate
panderers wander into easy "Hey, what if Iron Man got a boner in his suit?" turf
and get mired in there pretty deep, Posehn comes up with contexts for
once-obvious targets that makes them idiosyncratic and unique--like how
yelling "Slayer!" during any gay sex act immediately turns it into a
heteronormative, dudes-hangin'-out moment ("It's a bro job"), or his plans to
protect his family during the zombie apocalypse (two Baby Bjorns and a quick
demise), or the inexplicable, roundabout way playing with his
Star Wars action
figures in the bathtub as a kid led him to discover what masturbation was.
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| Robin Van Swank |
The
best part is that for a comedian who apparently relies on telling his audience
just how much he realizes how unappealing he's supposed to be, Posehn was open
enough to the crowd that he invited fans to hang out with him after the show
and get high in the parking lot. He laid down just two conditions: they bring
the weed, and nobody asks him to pass on their message to Sarah Silverman about
how hot they think she is.
Brian Posehn appears at
Acme Comedy Co. on Friday and Saturday, March
4 and 5, at 8 and 10:30 p.m.
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