Monday, May 10, 2010

Brian Posehn - 'Fart and Wiener Jokes'

Maybe I’m just getting too old, but I don’t find Brian Posehn funny anymore. He’s all dick jokes and no substance. Granted, he’s upfront about it, greeting the audience on his new album Fart and Wiener Jokes with “Take off your thinking caps,” but his album is aggressively, disappointingly stupid. Lewis Black once joked that he used the word “fuck” to stall for time while he thinks of other words. If that’s true, then Posehn must not be thinking at all.


Not that he isn’t trying, though. Posehn tells a great deal of jokes about his family life, but plenty of them are inconsequential. You know that friend that keeps telling half-stories about funny/cute things he/she did with his/her spouse? That’s Posehn trying to be sincere, over and over. Often times it feels like he’s rambling, like when he takes a joke about how he looks like he’s made of farts and runs with it until nobody is laughing anymore.


Some of his jokes come off weird and misogynistic. There’s a bit about Posehn’s love of strip clubs, so right away fuck that. Another bit springs from discussing Kate Beckinsale and Posehn’s desire to punch her in the face because she’s too beautiful. That intro is pretty fucked and most of the audience doesn’t follow, but Posehn follows it up by discussing cock socks (male actors use ’em to film sex scenes!). So, it goes from offensive to ho-hum pretty quickly.


Like his superior Live In: Nerd Rage, Wiener Jokes ends with joke metal songs, but even they fail to register. “More Metal Than You” riffs on bein’ metal, but “Metal By Numbers” already did it first and better. A metalfied cover of Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler” is OK. I mean, it’s “The Gambler,” does anybody have particularly strong feelings about that song anymore?


While he shows flashes of maturity, Posehn can’t quite close the gap between idea and punchline. Wiener Jokes marks a creative low point for the Sarah Silverman Show star and Mr. Show alumnus.


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