Opening for Oswalt was Aparna Nancherla, whose set had the audience talking just as much about her as Oswalt after the show had ended. The NYC-based comedian began her set in surreal fashion (talking about her boyfriend who is not actually her boyfriend and is in fact an inanimate object) but quickly brought her set back to reality. She mused on her coping with depression and anxiety (she absolutely killed the audience describing the latter as “having an edgy improv group in your brain”) and the strange world of working from home for a year-and-a-half. She likely gave many people a good idea with her “nap sandwich” bit (you take a nap, eat a sandwich, then take another nap).
When it was time for Oswalt, he gave the above preface, telling the audience he had seen Duran Duran in Hollywood the previous night. He was tired and turned this into a great segue on the perils of getting older — he struck gold as he talked about getting four Ambien pills before finding out his 71-year-old mom has a pill bottle “as big as a flashlight.”
Moving on from his stories of being 46, he ran the gamut of issues he has attempting to be as liberal and progressive as possible. He skewered the ever-changing terminology of progressiveness, proverbially wringing his hands at the fact that RuPaul was called out by the transgendered community for using the word “tranny.” Later, he talked about Obama as the president he wanted at first, but who follows the mold of every president before him — seems great until he does something like sign NAFTA (Clinton), carry out wide-scale torture (Bush) or increases drone strikes (Obama).
Pausing for a bit of crowdwork, he somehow managed to find a woman at the front who works for BlackBerry, which prompted Oswalt to ask “Is anyone here working for the Betamax company?”
He also talked about the challenges of parenting a six-year-old daughter, culminating in an encore story about the worst party clown in history, which you need to hear to fully appreciate. Oswalt’s set didn’t necessarily have a structure or theme, but he nailed a punchline seemingly every few seconds and the audience never stopped laughing.
See previous JFL42 coverage of John Hodgman, Bill Burr, Trevor Noah and John Mulaney.
