Review: Aaron Karo’s “Just Go Talk to Her”
Filed Under Records, Stand-Up Comedy
It’s little surprise Comedy Central opted to release the Ruminations author/columnist’s debut digitally: like June’s Bo Burnhan precursor, it’s a far less riskier way to roll the dice on an untested, or, in Karo’s case, highly polarizing talent. On one hand there are the 50,000-plus mailing-list devotees the animated 20-something has amassed since his freshman year at the University of Pennsylvania. On the other there are those who have actually seen Karo perform outside of a Student Rec Center. The latter may be inclined the write him off as Dane Cook by way of a Frat House; an alcohol-and-sex-obsessed (and moderately sexist) preacher on the merits of Dudedom not nearly as funny as he is a pandering to a crowd that doesn’t know any better. And those latter detractors would be pretty much dead on.
Talk’s hour of material falls into three categories: Getting drunk, getting laid and getting laid while drinking. There are shades of Dave Attell in the tales of excess (and in a later chunk on a one-time-use vibrating cock ring), as well as surprising hints of Jeff Foxworthy (“You know you’re a Voluntary Alcoholic if…”). Callbacks are shoehorned in with brute force, and even when he attempts a bit of crowd work, patter concerning nachos falls distractingly flat, though far more distracting is the album’s mixing, which grants the hooting, shrieking audience as much play as the headliner. As far as Karo’s observations on females, er, sorry…“chicks” go, there’s little introspection and even less empathy. “Breakups are tough…if you’re a girl,” he chuckles. “If I had a girlfriend I was thinking about proposing to, I’d relish it as long as possible. I’d buy a ring…and then wear it on my cock. And then get a tattoo right there that said, ‘Ain’t payback a bitch?’”
Upon noticing a “hot chick” in the car zooming past at 60 miles per hour, Karo quips, “I guess I kinda just felt she was hot. I think maybe I had Spider-Sense. ‘Cause my balls started tingling.” He’s definitely got an admirable flare for business, but he has yet to use that power for good instead of evil. But give Karo time. Now that he’s staring down 30, he might venture from the stifling Bros Before Hoes Approach. The storytelling skills and likability are there, it’s just a matter of applying it to material of substance. Surely he wouldn’t mind joining the ranks of his peers who get paid, laid and praised?
But he really knew a thing or two about Exchange Traded Funds. I’ve got to hand it to him on that.