Funny People was a divisive movie, but here's an indisputable fact: It was 146 minutes long. Some consider its forbidding runtime a byproduct of Judd Apatow's success and/or ego, others proof that his deep and genuine love for stand-up comedy inspired him to go all out to create its definitive film experience. I'm inclined to think the latter, since if you share Apatow's obsession with the artform, there were just tons of inside jokes, Easter eggs, and knowing winks that made those two and a half hours pass a little more quickly. Perhaps the most notable was that of RAAAAAAAANDY, the scene-stealing, blowjob-obsessed shock comic played by Aziz Ansari. Many wondered who exactly he was supposed to "be"-- Ansari says it's an amalgamation, and judging from the nine-minute, in-character bonus track on his debut record, Intimate Moments For a Sensual Evening, it's a comedy Cerberus of Dice Clay/Funk Flex/DJ Khaled. But the funniest joke was how the casting threw people off the scent: here's the embodiment of crude, backwards-hat humor being played by a slight, fully-bearded Indian guy from South Carolina, best known for offbeat comedies like "Parks and Recreation" and "Human Giant".
Then again, this undersells the kind of crossover appeal Ansari brings to his record. Though "Human Giant" was the kind of sketch show that would book the National as musical guests, as Ansari relates here on "MTV's Next", they also tried to find ways to shoehorn jokes about getting raped by dinosaurs. Much is made of Ansari's ties to indie rock, but in the span of one bit, you'll hear "TV on the Radio" and "titties." (Obviously, it's one of the two about Kanye West.) It's a tough gig to bridge the alternative scene at Upright Citizens Brigade and the business card swap meets at the Improv, but if there was a stand-up equivalent to the indie crossover of Phoenix's crowd-pleasing Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, this might be it.
In a similar way, it's pop smarts that define Ansari's performance: He's relatable without pandering and clever without making a flex of intellect or being overly arch. Ansari isn't about upsetting convention but in light of his peers, his livewire reading is refreshing if not altogether innovative. The generally shitty nature of the post-election brought out the darkest albums in everyone from Patton Oswalt to Dane Cook. Ansari, however, is more interested in his chubby cousin Harris-- an obsessive viewer of TNT one-hour dramas and eater of Cinnabon. Harris is played as Aziz's foil, but they share the same teenage-like enthusiasm-- a selling point for Ansari's observational humor.
In the album's first bit, Ansari has already brought up gay marriage, Jamba Juice, and the fallibility of the SmartType feature: in terms of contemporary comedy, those may as well be C, G, and D chords. He realizes they're clichés, but the humor comes in the hold and release-- I'll go easy on the spoilers here, but it's clear that Ansari knows what the crowd expects. He realizes we all notice. The idea that Southern Living conducted an investigation into thread counts could've stopped there, but the joke is in the absurdity of his reaction about finding out he'd been shorted 304 threads: "If that was a drug deal, I would've shot Hotel Luxury Linens in the face! You didn't think I was gonna count that shit, motherfucker?" Ansari nods to his Southern upbringing when describing the "Simple Man Cruise", a chance for Skynyrd fans to go on a luxury liner and rock out to "Saturday Night Special". In the hands of a more cynical comic, it's another elitist smackdown of flyover country, but Ansari turns it into a charming riff on Dixie colloquialisms.
Ansari admits that he's able to track people with celebrity crushes on him because "I do nothing but take naps all day!" As such, a good portion of Intimate takes place in Ansari's downtime on the Internet-- he hilariously torments Harris on a Facebook study group page, envisions the obituaries after dying in a car wreck while checking his Blackberry, and plays diplomat in a blog war between Kanye West and his naïve cousin Darwish.
But he often saves his best storytelling to relate what it's like to hang out with famous musicians. Granted, most of it is, "I'm not even supposed to be here," and straight-up journalism from an R. Kelly concert could often pass for comedy-- you could make the argument that Kelly's special brand of genius did all the heavy lifting. But Ansari nails what makes the spectacle so spectacular: Kelly leaving a club because he's convinced he'll never get a better lapdance, and of course, completely unexplained non sequiturs that dot his concerts.
Perhaps the musician Ansari is most closely associated with is Kanye West, and his "Night Out With Kanye West" bit once again does so much to capture the tics: Before doing a private show at Kanye's house, Ansari finds the singer alone, sitting on his couch listening to his own album. But earlier in the night, Kanye explains a long absence in the bathroom: "I was on an important phone call. I wasn't taking a shit." Between those two examples, he nails what often makes West such an engrossing figure-- a guy with an enormous ego and an incessant need for approval. It's 2010, and a famous comedian was able to do routines on R. Kelly and Kanye without using "pee on you" or "I'mma let you finish" jokes. Go see some more stand-up if that doesn't register as cause for celebration.
