Diarrhea Pockets!
Circa 2004, my Top 3 list of stand-up comedians went something like this:
Mitch Hedberg
Doug Stanhope
Dave Attell
Circa now, it hovers somewhere around this:
Stanhope
Jim Gaffigan
Joe Rogan
Hedberg’s death and the rise of Rogan’s public persona as an astute comic (as opposed to cashing-in TV host) obviously affected the standings, but so did the cool factor of Gaffigan, the uncoolest dude around. Eugene Mirman, Patton Oswalt and Demetri Martin may have the lock on alt-comedy crowds, but the resurgence of comic geekery in the Aughts era can be directly traced not to Dane Cook’s SU-FI, but to relatively clean, predominantly nonsensical jokes about cake and manatees.
Last in town for a handful of shorter, repetitive sets during November’s Comedy Festival, Gaffigan’s massive Beyond the Pale tour recently brought him and similarly idiosyncratic opener Rich Brooks to a sold-out Mandalay Bay Theatre. I’ve seen Gaffigan at least a dozen times, but during his hour and 15 minutes, something new hit me. Between the requisite pale bits (“I thought he’d be paler. I thought he’d be as pale as he is on the CD where he looks like a pedophile. He was good in Capote, though.”) and 15 minutes on bacon (bacon in bed, bacon in hospitals, bacon in religion, Kevin Bacon), he’s got some serious social commentary going on.
Jim Gaffigan: Social critic. Sure, devotees may go nuts when his little crowd-commentary voice breathes, “I just came to hear that damn Hot Pocket joke,” but it’s all there: gay marriage, recycling, SUVs/the environment and religion. Then just as stealthily, he’s back on the Cinnabons and “pepper wand” jokes. American obesity and sloth, check.
Just don’t look for any deeper meaning behind Conan O’Brien crying and wetting himself on the pair's Pale Force episodes.