My Weakness is Strong

My Weakness is Strong
Patton Oswalt
Warner Bros. and Degenerate Records
Released August 25, 2009

If you like Patton, you will like this album. Overall, the material is very solid, all new, nothing repeated from previous albums and a very fun listen.

Patton settles down a bit with this one, with his life actually toning down a bit. Not so much raw hatred. It has Patton growing up a bit with him discussing becoming a father and having to give up drugs, and doing a media tour for the Pixar film Ratatouille and having to give up his hatred to be civil to children who might interview him on the Disney Channel or show up at his door dressed as Remy for Halloween.

For longtime fans, there are still many are many dark roads traveled in his comedy, so don't worry about that being lacking. For example, Patton talks about and how he went off his Prozac because of his belief the world will devolve into the world of the Road Warrior in thirty years and he didn't want to end up suddenly hitting bottom and ending up not caring about being the bumper ornament for the head wastelander.

There are, as usual some hilariously-recalled stories told by Patton, such as the story of him, his wife and a Realtor coming to look at a house only to find the owner in the middle of an orgy and a story of doing stand-up opening for a magician who does his entire act hate-fucking the audience over the loss of five dollars.

Patton also muses as only he can, with a theory that religion was invented by someone like himself to dodge getting killed by a giant man with a club in ancient times. He also tells a hilarious bit about how much everything has changed in only the past ten years, and therefore time travel is cheaper.

The album comes in an efficient cardstock case with beautiful art by Ivan Brunetti (known for the award-winning Schitzo comic) and two sleeves, one for the DVD and one for the CD. It is one important advantage the physical album has over the digital download.

The CD and DVD contain exactly the same show. The DVD is filmed at the Lisner Auditorium in Washington D.C. so if you want see the album and not just hear it, it is there for you. It is good to get some subtle visual comedy you would otherwise miss.

The DVD is also well-produced with disturbing animated art by Ivan Brunetti and piano music that sounds like Phillip Glass on horse tranquilizers. A nice step-up actually from a lot of comedy DVDs which in the past have looked like they were slapped together with iDVD.

The DVD also contains extras, such as a bad infomercial for the Patton Oswalt CD which contains cameos from such people as Paul F. Tompkins and Zach Galifianakis. There is also a strange series of parodies of Tommy Wiseau with Patton as Mr. Wiseau, hence the strange. There is an alternate opening to the comedy special which slams openings to comedy specials and a neat little photo slideshow with a series of pictures of items that remind you of jokes. It's hard to explain, but very neat.

So, this album is available pretty much everywhere right now at about $15 or less, so if you are a fan of Patton, you've probably already bought it.

Full outside cover:


Full inside cover:


DVD menu image:


Quite possibly the saddest DVD setup menu ever created: