Skip to content
Brick Wall Comedy
Brick Wall Comedy

Feelin' Kinda Patton

Patton Oswalt

United Musicians · Album · 2004 · 72 min

The theatrical, pop-culture-obsessed debut album of an alternative comedy pioneer.

Listen free on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Patton Oswalt spent his early career mastering a specific style of nerdy rage, and this performance finds him channeling it into hyper-literate tirades against the mundane absurdities of American life. Whether he is analyzing the aggressive masculinity of Black Angus steakhouse commercials or translating the sad short stories hidden in roadside liquor billboards, Oswalt targets the cultural debris of the early 2000s with theatrical frustration.

Recorded in September 2003 at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia, and released in June 2004, the album captured Oswalt at a career crossroads. He was already a recognizable face on mainstream television, yet he chose to record his debut comedy album in an indie rock venue to an audience of college students and music geeks. The resulting set is a mix of pop-culture obsession and deep-seated misanthropy, featuring early signature bits like his defense of TiVo and a breakdown of 1980s heavy metal music videos.

The release itself is an abridged, remastered version of a longer double-disc set titled 222 (Live & Uncut). While some contemporary critics felt that a few of the cruder, boundary-pushing jokes dragged, the album’s tighter edits highlight Oswalt’s rhythmic delivery and love of precise language. Soon after, Oswalt would help launch the Comedians of Comedy tour, cementing the alternative room aesthetic introduced here.

The set list

6 bits

  1. How We Won the War and President Bush's governance

    Satirizes the vague objectives of the Iraq War and compares the country's leadership to bad alcoholic fathers who sketch a drawing of a bike instead of buying one.

  2. 1980s heavy metal videos

    Riffs on hair metal bands that rocked with such intensity they seemed able to alter the physical properties of objects.

  3. TiVo technology

    Hyperbolically extols the television recording device as being greater than the gift of life itself.

  4. Parenting and cool kids

    Advocates being an intentionally dull parent and hiding cool interests so children rebel by becoming genuinely cool adults.

  5. Black Angus restaurant commercials

    Exaggerates and parodies the aggressive, confrontational tone of the steakhouse chain's advertisements.

  6. Playing 'The Chipmunk Song' at 16 rpm

    Recounts playing the record at slow speed, turning the chipmunks' vocals normal while making Ross Bagdasarian sound like a demonic entity.

How it plays

Tone
Transgressive, biting, darkly ironic, and satirical.
On stage
Petulant, irreverent, literate, and manic with an underground punk rock sensibility.
Pace
Operates as a rapid sprinter with quick-witted, fast-moving topic shifts and manic riffs, occasionally slowing on longer anecdotal routines.
About
American politics and President Bush, The Iraq War and the apocalypse, 1980s heavy metal music videos, Parenting and child-rearing strategies, Commercial advertisements and liquor marketing, Pop culture figures and odd media memories

What the critics said

Met with positive reviews praising Oswalt's literate, dark, and punk-rock comedic sensibilities, though some critics felt his longer routines dragged and noted an over-reliance on analogy-based punchlines.

In the room: Recorded in an iconic indie rock club with an energized crowd responding to transgressive, irony-laden alternative comedy.

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: en.wikipedia.org, discogs.com, musicbrainz.org, en-academic.com, popmatters.com, oklahoman.com, freshairarchive.org.

Backstory

Released during the George W. Bush administration and the post-9/11 Iraq War, amidst a polarized political climate; released through United Musicians, the indie label co-founded by Aimee Mann and Michael Penn.

Details

Released
Taped
40 Watt Club, Athens
Runtime
72 min
Where
United Musicians (album)
Topics
Before
Comedy Central Presents (1999)
After
No Reason to Complain (2004)

More from Patton Oswalt

If you liked this