Fart and Wiener Jokes

Album Review

In what could be the most drastic yin/yang of all time, the idealized Brian Posehn slays other standup comedians Manowar-style on his album covers while the real Posehn names his cat Manowar as a tribute to the band that brought you the mighty Triumph of Steel album. On his appropriately titled second standup effort fans get plenty of the real deal, not a King of Metal but a hilarious, everyday Star Wars and metal nerd (not the “good kind of nerd” who can fix computers) who beats himself for both his looks (a self-described mix of Larry Bird, Big Bird, Chris Elliot, and Beaker from The Muppet Show) and masturbating too much. “Take off your thinking caps” are his first words here, and while Fart and Wiener Jokes is little more than just that, Posehn is such an connoisseur of all things disgusting and immoral that he’s the only standup alive who can run the inappropriate gamut, going all the way from “we’re gonna have a mouth baby” to “a little t**d cutter action.” Allow for swears and that’s not even the half of it, but his gross set is anchored by clever observations on the domestic and mundane (there’s a bit about cats and their skittish behavior that has the audience in hysterics) plus a nice-guy underbelly with some hapless, screwup charm (an awkward encounter with a transsexual fan starts with “Thanks bro!” and goes downhill from there). Closing the comedy set is the one-two punch of an extremely personal tale of teenage self-discovery (“Obi Wan Story”) plus a very funny, surprisingly catty bit on why the comedian has issues with “Kate Beckinsale.” Tacked onto the end of it all are two songs from Posehn and his metal friends (Scott Ian, Brendon Small, John Tempesta, and others), including the one-upping shredder “More Metal Than You” along with a sludgy cover of the Kenny Rogers favorite “The Gambler.”