Poking A Grizzly

Bengt Washburn’s best material comes from watching his own brain fail routine administrative tasks. He walks into a grocery store, pays for the items in his cart, and strolls out to the parking lot empty-handed, leaving every bag behind on the carousel.

Filmed in Provo, Utah, for the launch of Dry Bar Comedy in 2017, the 44-minute set relies on a self-effacing honesty that fits the platform’s clean mandate without blunting the comic’s edge. By that point Washburn had logged nearly two decades on the road, winning the San Francisco International Comedy Competition back in 2001 and making late-night appearances on Conan and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Much of the set draws from his life as a stay-at-home father and military spouse living in Germany, where ordinary routines turn into low-stakes misadventures.

He spends time parsing the phonetic harshness of learning German compared to Chinese, noting how swearing in a second language bypasses the guilt ingrained by his Utah Mormon upbringing. Other routines touch on aging, receiving a metal detector for his 40th birthday, and trying to parent while completely devoid of practical authority.