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KEEPING AN EDGE IN A VERY DULL WORLD
I don't know if I've ever mentioned this
before—after a couple of years it's hard to
remember all of the BS I've slung in this col
umn—but as an undergraduate at UGA in the
late '80s I spent a couple of summers in the
stand-up comedy biz. I worked, first as a bar-
back, then as a cook, at A Comic Cafe, a gig
gle joint in a strip mall right where Marietta
meets Smyrna. This was at the height of the
stand-up boom, when starting a comedy club
in Smyrna actually seemed like a good idea.
The club was run by four guys, only one
of whom had any experience in nightclubs
or stand-up, and so it went the way of most
nightclubs: a brief period of cachet and then
collapse in the face of mismanagement and
internal squabbling. But I worked there while
it was hot ana I got to see a lot of good, bad
and just plain awful comics on their way up.
And along the way I learned three vital facts
about stand-up comedy: 1) outside of air-traf
fic controlling, no profession on Earth attracts
a greater number of manic-depressives; 2) not
even Sicilian mafiosi in the throes of vendetta
can hate with the white-hot intensity that
stand-up comics have for Zoo-Crew morning
drive-time deejays; and 3) scoring a sitcom is
the dream of all comics on the road, but once
it happens they'll never be as funny again.
Drew Carey, Brett Butler, Bob Saget (that poor,
poor bastard), Jerry Seinfeld, all of them were
quicker and edgier before they got their day
jobs. I'm sure they're happier—Jay Leno cer
tainly is—but the knife-edge honed by years
of writing, revising and performing their own
stuff under fire is just gone.
Patton Oswalt is one of the very few
exceptions to this rule. Nine years in a sup
porting role on "The King of Queens" paid
his bills, but he managed to duck, weave and
dodge Hollywood's traps like Indiana Jones in
the Temple of Minor Celebrity Doom. Maybe
it was his keen sense of irony, his consistent
sense of self or an indie-rock sensibility that
insisted the glossy come-ons of plastic fame.
Or maybe it was Oswalt's lifelong love of
the written word, the idea of being a writer
first and a performer second, that kept him
grounded—like the old joke goes, nobody
wants to fuck the writer.
That's certainly why Oswalt's new book,
Zombie Spaceship Wasteland (Simon &
Schuster, 2011), is so very, very good. Unlike
most books by comedians, which seem Lo be
little more than collections of recycled bits
thrown together to cash in on the comic's cur
rent prominence, Oswalt's book is something
to read rather than digest.
There are comedy bits, to be sure, stuff
that came out of Oswalt's notebooks that can't
be performed and must be read. For example,
the chapter about heartwarming greet
ing cards and the horrifying origins of their
adorable illustrations is a flat-out riot, and
Oswalt's epic poem about a
badass Dungeons & Dragons
character discovering his
nerdy origins is pretty damn
funny.
The best chapters, how
ever, are autobiographical.
Oswalt tells of his slow
discovery that a favorite
uncle's eccentricities are
actually rapidly progressing
schizophrenia, of doing time
as a ticket-taker in a sub
urban movie theater while
his attempts at expanding
his horizons are hindered by
the white-trash melodramas
going on around him. He
tells of playing snow fort
with the other kids, bliss
fully clueless while their
older brothers are huffing
paint and one's father is dal
lying with the neighbor lady.
Two stories especially
stand out. There's Oswalt's
soul-crushing visit to MTV's
"gifting house," where
C-list celebrities go to score
swag bags and trade on
their empty, fleeting self-
importance. And then there's
the one about Oswalt's first
headlining gig, 10 days of
hell (otherwise known as a
Vancouver suburb) playing a
dead-end club for a coked-up utter ass-munch
of a club owner, told with the darkiy comic
despair of a Kafka narrative. If there are any
budding comics, musicians or artists among
you who have never had this experience, hold
on tightly to your innocence, because it won't
last—the rest of us are right there with you,
Patton.
I won't say my experience working in the
comedy club has made me an expert on what's
funny. In fact, there's a lot of stuff out there
I just don't get. Tyler Perry. "American Dad."
Those movies that are supposed to be parodies
of other movies. But I do know that good
comedy comes from the knowledge of real
tragedy, the appreciation of one's place in a
cold and ironic universe, and honest, incisive
writing. Zombie Spaceship Wasteland, like
Patton Oswalt's stand-up, is proof positive of
ciidt.
John G. Nettles
WEDNESDAY - 2/16
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FRIDAY - 2/18
Local Libations
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Enjoy $5 specialty cocktails
Now featuring $6
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FEBRUARY 16, 2011 • FLAGPOLE.COM 11
