In person, Dave
Attell’s act is not quite as rat-a-tat as it sounds on his comedy album
“Skanks for the Memories.” Whether this can be written off to the
results of his status as a “famous drunk” -- how he’s billed in his own
advertisements now -- is uncertain, but he is still adding material and
not coasting on the same sets of jokes.
In a November 4,
2005 Boston performance, a few of his standbys were still there, heard
previously on his Comedy Central “Insomniac Tour
” special, like a bit
about the phenomenon of “ball drop” (if you don’t already know, don’t
ask). For most of the set, though, Attell seemed to be pushing his own
material further beyond the edge, even to the point where some things
didn’t fly, prompting him to observe, “I throw a lot of stuff at the
wall, not all of it’s going to stick.”
As ever, Attell’s
humor is enhanced by his delivery, crafted with a few different voices
for saying different things for emphasis and effect, such the
incredulous tone he uses to say, “They’ve got to stop building schools
near pedophiles, these people need to live too.”
Attell goes into
some sick realms certainly … like midgets in porn, the pleasures of
rocking chair masturbation and various incidents caused by drinking
Jagermeister that could sell this liquor if it had TV commercials.
Having cultivated
fans among college students and those who share his twisted sensibility,
Attell attracts fans like one in the audience wearing a shirt reading,
“Ass. The other vagina.” But Attell didn’t give this fan any attention
like you might expect, and instead focused on a bald-headed man he
dubbed a Michael Stipe clone, riffing on how such an appearance seems
unhealthful, to say the least. Perhaps Attell chose this subject because
it gave him more to work with.
Comedians at a top
level playing showcase clubs with higher-end cover prices often give
much different types of performances than they would in a large theater
setting. Clubs require a lot more audience patter than a theater show.
Most of the time a theater show requires them to present material in
succession without too much audience banter. That banter usually
detracts from a show, it seems, and saps some life and energy out a
performance, making it actually harder to get laughs because of the
difficulty of building joke on top of joke in rapid succession to keep
the audience off balance enough to keep laughing.
This difference is
often the rule, and with Attell, the effect is perceptible. Having seen
him in a theater setting and enjoyed his album, delivering his material
in rapid succession with little chance for the audience to breathe suits
him better.
