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Patrice O'Neal · 2002 · Showtime
A 2002 half-hour set about relationship stress and physical decline.
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Patrice O’Neal opens this half-hour with a thesis on human honesty. He argues that children laugh at inappropriate things because they have not yet learned to be polite, insisting that a person’s initial, unedited reaction is their actual feeling. That philosophy drives the rest of his time on stage. He uses a slow, conversational delivery to explain the mechanics of watching adult films with a partner, the anxiety induced by white women, and the specific ways couples generate stress.
Released as part of Showtime’s stand-up series, the 2002 set captures the comedian a few years before his radio dominance on Opie and Anthony. He spends a heavy portion of the run time addressing his weight and diabetes with total pragmatism. O’Neal details the indignity of a doctor warning him he could die from eating a pack of cookies, and admits to wasting his prayers on asking for the strength to avoid snacks instead of praying for starving nations. He then outlines a strict rule for his own body, noting that if his stomach ever expands enough to form an “ass in the front,” he will simply give up. He refuses to do the cardiovascular work required to remove a second bottom.