Raunch With Heart

Big Jay Oakerson gets sex-filled material across without seeming crass, on "Live At Webster Hall"

By Michael Shashoua

If you’re not familiar with comedian Big Jay Oakerson’s humor, imagine Kevin Smith’s characters Jay and Silent Bob, slightly more grown up, with a daughter, but even more filthy in his patter.

On his new album, released June 21, “Live At Webster Hall,” recorded in New York, Oakerson performs lots of absurd and extreme material about sex and sexuality, but in a personable, relatable and self-deprecating way that show heart, not crassness.

There’s four segments titled “Dicks,” parts one through four, to give you some idea. One of these, subtitled “Real Dad,” is a gem recounting how Oakerson found out his dad was not as well-endowed as his stepdad.

In another piece, “Guy/Girl Roommates,” Oakerson maintains that heterosexual men and women who aren’t in a relationship can’t be roommates without at least some sexual tension and weirdness. He doesn’t spare males overall, or himself, in his take. If he had a female roommate, Oakerson says, he’d be checking out her underwear drawer as soon as she went away for a weekend.  “I’d feel ashamed … then 30 minutes later I’d be back doing it again,” he says, as the punchline to his point.

Oakerson’s material has similar pacing, timing and surprises as that of Dave Attell, although his subject matter is not as wide ranging or wildly inventive. But Oakerson is definitely skilled at presenting his material through a genuine, relatable persona, and that is captured on “Live at Webster Hall.”