Road Trip Album Picks: Eugene Mirman's "God Is A Twelve-Year-Old Boy With Asperger's"

WHAT: Third proper album from comedian of comedy
LABEL: Sub Pop Records, 2009
GOOD IF YOU LIKE: Pretty much anything vaguely resembling alternative comedy
WHERE TO FIND IT: Tons of places, this got a wide release
LENGTH: 42 minutes

How Sub Pop got into comedy we'll never know, but it's good to see top-notch talent getting decent distribution for a change. Eugene Mirman's God Is A Twelve-Year-Old Boy With Asperger's (the title) comes from a tale on his book tour, specifically track #8. In it, you hear about a kid asking aloud why Eugene doesn't worship him as his God-- if you don't find that funny, well, stop reading now. The always funny, sometimes spiteful, but genuinely hilarious ramblings are just as good if not better than his previous albums.

The album's material gets increasingly personal, culminating in a bit on airplanes losing his luggage that crosses over from a mere joke to some higher level of performance art. Not only are we treated to transcripts of his calls, but we also find out that he wants his audience in on the act-- he printed up a bunch of postcards to send to the airline, enlisting his audience as troops on his quest against his lost pants and whatnot. Truly, this should be the stuff of tomorrow's comedy legends.

Like his other recordings, this is a great road trip album, and is also good pretty much any other time. If you haven't heard his material, this is a good of a place to start as any,

Also notable: His first two albums are "The Absurd Nightclub Comedy of Eugene Mirman" and "En Garde, Society". Eugene appears on "The Pennsylvania Macaroni Company" with Patton Oswalt, Brian Posehn, and Maria Bamford. The comic has a mini tour CD from the Comedians of Comedy as well, some of which seeped into his other releases-- so it's more of a collectible than it is a must-own disc of rarities. (But we'll look at it later.)