CD Review
Brian Posehn: The Fartist
3 1/2 stars (out of 5)
Brian Posehn, venerated funny man of The Sarah Silverman Show and Mr. Show with Bob and David, just released a new stand-up album entitled The Fartist, complete with cover art mocking the academy award-winning picture.
Fear not, Posehn will demonstrate his masterly skill and knowledge of all things fart. From engineer grade intel on how the body revises with age to a frightening real life tale of claustrophobic, no ventilation flatulence, the title topic is in no way neglected. The comedic brother of the fart, masturbation, is also thoroughly addressed because “You write what you know.”
He lambasts his marriage and age with cynicism and sarcasm in familiar treads of the self-aware middle-aged white flabby guy, an epithet that sounds like a crude summation or write-off, but the stalled inertia of middle age is a vast, versatile land for comedy, and Posehn is cruelly funny and open as he offers ode and praise to the wifeless years of controlled bowl movement with self-compromising statements like “Thanks stripper tits, for taking me back to a simpler time.”
Posehn, like Louis C.K., reaches us from the other side of a mental milestone, the realm where the body is claimed to be useless and irksome, the moral implication of many past modes of operation is frightening, and real salvation lies in a couple dribble mouthed kids and repeatedly subjecting an audience to their own current stupidity and eventual doom.
His set could clearly demolish a room on any given night, and certain moments are 100 percent stellar, like relating his wee-wee and pot to Woody and Buzz (a pun-rich premise) from Toy Story 3. But some bits don’t have enough fire power beyond the initial joust, like a story of a “super stoner” who keeps a gram in his eye-socket, which seems determined for us to feel disgusted, but the audience is already well hardened after baptism by fart joke.
Still, despite a few lulls, Posehn’s egoless assault on himself, his crude honesty that takes the edge off of aging and change, and his high-magnitude cleverness earn The Fartist a respectable rating.
