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Brick Wall Comedy

If You Buy This CD, I Can Get This Car

Robert Schimmel

Warner Bros. Records · Album · 1998 · 65 min

Medical trauma and sexual humiliation anchor this explicitly blue audio set.

Robert Schimmel structures almost an entire hour of stand-up around his genitals and the various ways they dictate his life decisions. He works exceptionally dirty, using explicit material as a framework for genuine vulnerability. The pacing relies on his signature conversational anxiety, weaving through humiliating sexual encounters and medical emergencies with a needy, confessional energy. He plays the role of a guy desperate to explain himself, even when the details guarantee he looks terrible.

Released as an audio album in 1998, this hour arrived during the peak of his notoriety as a frequent guest on The Howard Stern Show. It marked his second release with Warner Bros. Records. The material leans heavily into the physical realities of a recent heart attack, anchoring the tracklist with a fifteen-minute centerpiece about recovering from cardiac arrest while trying to maintain a sex life. Beyond the medical trauma, the bits hit on trips to the sperm bank, an obsession with Demi Moore, and his chronic inability to land network television work. He caps the project with a literal musical title track, complete with an uncensored version.

The set list

4 bits

  1. Downloading porn online

    Details how downloading pornography inevitably leads to receiving a giant picture of a penis via email.

  2. Visiting the spa

    Jokes about wandering eyes checking out other men's units in the spa.

  3. Watching a movie featuring Demi Moore

    Riffs on how watching a movie inevitably circles back to Demi Moore proposing oral sex.

  4. Surviving a heart attack and television struggles

    Sobering routines contrasting his health scare and inability to land television work with his explicit material.

How it plays

Tone
Sexually explicit, raunchy, and profane, interspersed with sobering reflections.
On stage
Raw, candid, tireless talker known for uncompromised frankness and unapologetic blue comedy.
Pace
Tireless talker.
About
Penises and male anatomy, Sexual foibles and fears, Internet porn, Experiencing a heart attack, Rejection by network television

What the critics said

AllMusic critic Michael Gallucci described the album as occasionally funny but ultimately one-trick due to Schimmel's relentless focus on male genitals, while noting that sobering tracks about his heart attack and television struggles broke from the norm.

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: allmusic.com, open.spotify.com, latimes.com, tower.jp, ew.com, en.wikipedia.org.

Backstory

Schimmel suffered a heart attack in 1998 and previously endured personal tragedy including the death of his 11-year-old son to cancer. His extremely profane, raw, and sexually explicit act kept him excluded from network television sitcom deals.

Details

Released
Taped
Cobb's Comedy Club, The Cannery, San Francisco
Runtime
65 min
Where
Warner Bros. Records (album)
Topics
Before
Guilty as Charged (1994)
After
Reserection (2004)

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