Review of Patrice O’Neal at Caroline’s, March 1, 2006

Patrice, where was your A game?

Now don’t get me wrong. This man owns the audience even as he proceeds to provoke them. That was some of the best crowd work I’ve seen, with smooth segueing in and out of prepared bits, and overall it had a brilliantly impromptu effect. Invariably, there will be a silly ‘girl power’ bitch who will impress the full weight of her ignorance onto the rest of the audience. Patrice easily targets one who gets angry enough to call him an “ignorant motherfucker” before leaving the club. The gauntlet was thrown and Miss Hissy-Fit bowed out in defeat. I was actually hoping that Patrice would rag on that entire awful table of women until it resulted in a mass exodus of those middle aged, annoying white bitches, but it was not to be. Instead, they seemed to spread their bullshit-feminism contagion onto the next table, because Patrice ended up 86ing a young Latina miss, who forced her entire entourage to leave with her. This is heckler-bashing on a whole ‘nother level.

But his use of crowd work was too heavy handed. It’s still only one stand up technique, and by its very nature, always has the tendency to slow down the pace and energy of an act. No matter how good, it will always be inferior to excellent monologue. Now Patrice has gotten too good with it, and it’s become his lazy man’s cheat sheet.

For his prepared monologue bits, he suddenly starts talking about feeling guilty over nasty Twister sex and there are too many long, lingering pauses in between. Is he getting his guilt trip confused with lil’ Jimmy’s? I blame VH1. Stop doing that no-content paycheck job! It’s sapping the creative dignity out of you.

Emceeing the show was Chris Mata. He did quite a nice job warming up the crowd, showing proficiency with both crowd work and prepped material. It'll be interesting to see how his act progresses over the next few years. However, it was incredibly difficult to listen to another opener, Dante Nero. Not only does he look like the head rapist at Riker's, he had a gargantuan thing in his ear. It looked like a T-rex tried to tap him on the shoulder and lost a fingernail in the process. What kind of women is he trying to pick up? No means no, motherfucker!

Patrice actually claimed to have purchased a Bowflex machine. A Bowflex??? For a man who couldn't even be bothered to stand for his own routine? And puts the mic back in the mic stand because he didn't want to rest his forearm on his D cup rack? And he's gonna do bench presses for a month? Good luck, man, but you should just save yourself the trouble and get a breast reduction for your man-tits.

Does this man have a CD or DVD out yet? No. After 14 years in the business, maybe one day he'll get around to it. He’s got the money, now he needs to stop spending it all on hookers and glass dildos. Get your shit together, because you’ve got the talent to reach the next level.

Until then, listen for him on Opie & Anthony. There are various audio clips on his website at www.patriceoneal.com, O&A's site, and right here on Cringe Humor.

-Aud