Saturday, January 3, 2009

Impersonal

Paul F. Tompkins
Released by aspecialthing.com

You may not have heard of Paul F. Tompkins. Ever. You may think "That's a name I have never heard of." If you have heard of him, maybe you've seen him as the "Guy who sort of appeared in Mr. Show episodes" and on that "Root of All Evil with Lewis Black How Disappointing That Show Is." 

His album, Impersonal is somewhat hard to obtain in a physical form. I personally prefer the physical copies of comedy albums for the interior artwork, and because many comics are including DVDs with their CD sets now. This reviewer could not find it easily online, but fortunately the digital downloadable copy is easy to obtain.

On the album you will find just over an hour of F. Tompkins' humor, which typically ranges from the sarcastic to the very sarcastic with a grandiose, almost circus emcee sort of bitter cynical tone to it.

A memorable bit on the album is where F. Tompkins deconstructs the whole idea of the "Snakes in a can of peanut brittle" novelty item and how it could not possibly be funny, considering that nobody ever eats peanut brittle, let alone out of a can. Nor would anyone be fooled by the vinyl covered springs that shoot out of the can into thinking they were snakes. Now, take that unfunny argument and make it sarcastically funny and have it go on for ten minutes.

There are also jabs at hipsters who wear strange animals and walk around in public to appear more interesting than they are.  Saying that he would introduce himself to them as"Oh pardon me, sir, is that a bird on your shoulder?  Well you must be THE MOST FASCINATING PERSON IMAGINABLE!"

I guess the good part about Paul F. Tompkins is that he is sarcastic as fuck. I guess the bad part about him is that he's such a sarcastic fuck sometimes the constant sarcasm can be almost grating for the most cynical of us. Also his voice varies from really quiet to INCREDIBLY LOUD quite a bit, which can be disconcerting for even cats, but overall the positives definitely outweigh the negatives as far as this album is concerned.

You can get it from Amazon.com if you want.