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    Interview: Patton Oswalt

    Patton Oswalt brilliantly lampooning NPR on his 2006 Comedy Central special No Reason to Complain remains one of my favorite bits by any stand-up comic, and I’ve faithfully gobbled up everything he’s produced since with reckless moth-to-a-flame glee. Oswalt’s anecdotal humor is unabashedly rife with geek-ery — the stuff of dreams for nerds like myself who savor obscure details and limitless observation in storytelling. That doesn’t mean his material lacks broader accessibility, however – if you’ve balked at organized religion, questioned the absurdity of other people’s behavior, or tangled with the darker corners of your own conscience, chances are you’ll find plenty to relate to in Oswalt’s repertoire.

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    Oswalt’s dagger-sharp perceptions and unapologetic commentary have earned him a significant amount cachet in the court of public opinion, where he regularly spars on social media about politics and culture. He’s made no secret of his liberal viewpoint, having actively stumped for Hillary Clinton and other Democratic candidates down the ticket prior to last November’s election. We spoke the day after President Obama’s farewell speech in January, and discussed the disparity between its sanguine messages and the new administration’s ability to invoke optimism among its opponents. “I don’t think we’re going to find hope in the President,” he explains. “We’re going to find hope in each other resisting and helping each other out. Which is not a great way for a leader to be, but the leaders we elect are normally there to take worry and concern off of our plates – and this is just a huge scoop of concern back on what everyone else is already carrying.”

    Despite his following in the Twitterverse, Oswalt insists that his actual political influence is limited and he wants to leave the important work to others who can help mesh a divided populace. “I’m more focused with whatever platform I have with getting not so much my voice out there, but other peoples’ voices that I think are way more astute and have actual solutions and action ideas rather than me…I think I’ve kind of gotten beyond…I’ve seen the uselessness of me just going ‘ugh, this is stupid,’ or ‘this is awful.’ That doesn’t help anybody. People out there…especially the people who voted for Trump, are going to need help. They have genuine concerns and real fears – and they voted for a guy who is the architect of those fears and those concerns, and who doesn’t give a shit about them. He doesn’t care.”

    Oswalt’s impact as a performer is much less debatable. Beginning his career doing stand-up in the late 1980s and early 1990s, his breakout arrived in 1998 with the role of perpetually awkward Spence Olchin on the long-running CBS sitcom The King of Queens. He’s remained a fixture on the small screen for nearly twenty years with a lengthy list of acclaimed appearances in The United States of TaraTwo and a Half MenParks and Recreation, Inside Amy SchumerPortlandiaRaising Hope, Veep, and Justified. Oswalt is a prolific voice-over actor that has been featured in over thirty series; currently he is narrating the ABC sitcom The Goldbergs as the voice of the adult version of its principle character, Adam. His vocal talents also led him to his first major film role as the voice of Remy the Rat in Disney’s 2007 Academy Award-winning animated vehicle Ratatouille. He received critical praise for his leading roles in live action films Big Fan (2009), and Young Adult (2011). He’ll also star alongside Tom Hanks, Emma Watson, and Bill Paxton in the James Ponstadt/Dave Eggers-penned thriller The Circle, and with Jon Hamm, Ellen Burstyn, Bruce Dern, and Amber Tamblyn in the drama Nostalgia later this year.

    In the meantime, Oswalt is back on the road working out new stand-up material – which he’ll bring to the stage tonight at the Palace Theatre. His most recent special, Talking for Clapping, was released on Netflix last spring and as a standalone album a few months later. It was an unqualified success that earned Oswalt both Emmy and Grammy Awards.

    The overdue accolades, however, have arrived with woefully unfair timing in the wake of the sudden death of Oswalt’s wife, True Crime Diary author Michelle McNamara, last April. Returning to the stage has been a difficult process, although Oswalt does admit that it may be helping him heal to some extent. “Yeah, you know…” He pauses. “It’s hard for me to describe that right now, because it’s still kind of a work in progress. But, yeah, I guess I’m trying to do that on stage, you know. It’s a slow progress.” Oswalt has also vowed to complete McNamara’s unfinished book about a series of murders that occurred between the mid-1970s and the mid-1980s across the state of California.

    Resolving to return to regular writing and project work, Oswalt, along with Paul Rudd, surfaced in the Andrew Kevin Walker-written adult animated comedy, Nerdland, last December. “Well, they asked me to be in it…they asked me to do a voice,” Oswalt confirms when asked about what compelled him to sign on. “And I’d been a fan of (Andrew’s) for so long – and also Titmouse, which is the animation company that did it – they do Deathlok and stuff like that. So, I got involved out of my own interest and excitement for the project.” Touted as Walker’s personal ode to Los Angeles, the film follows principal characters: John, a fledgling screenwriter (voiced by Rudd), and Elliot, a hopeful (voiced by Oswalt) as they chase fame. “It’s a very mutated and over-cranked depiction of that pursuit. But in being so mutated and over-cranked, it’s weirdly accurate.”

    In addition to a new comedy special that will apparently be produced after his current tour, Oswalt is also set to star in an upcoming revival of the sci-fi franchise Mystery Science Theater 3000, which is set to air on Netflix on April 14. Fourteen new episodes will be included in what the network is calling the series’ eleventh season (season ten wrapped in August of 1999). Actress Felicia Day, comedian Hampton Yount, and creator and inaugural host Joel Hodgson will comprise the rest of the re-boot’s cast.

    And if you ask a nerd like me who was glued to my roommate’s tiny 15″ TV in our college dorm room for much of MST3K‘s original run, Oswalt kibitzing with a bunch of anthropomorphic robots against the backdrop of terrible B-movies is basically effing poetry.

    Patton Oswalt will appear tonight, 8:00 p.m. at the Palace Theater, 34 W. Broad St. Tickets are $28-138 (plus applicable taxes and fees), available via Ticketmaster.

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    Grant Walters
    Grant Waltershttps://columbusunderground.com
    Grant is a freelance writer for Columbus Underground who primarily focuses on music and comedy. He's a Canadian transplant, born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and schooled in Vancouver, British Columbia. Grant is also the co-author of two internationally acclaimed books: "Decades: The Bee Gees in the 1960s" and "Decades: The Bee Gees in the 1970s." He has also penned numerous articles and artist interviews for the nationally recognized site, Albumism.
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