Dane Cook’s Vicious Circle Has Us All Spinning

Dane Cook’s Vicious Circle Has Us All Spinning by Roxanne McDonald

Dane Cook was, until recently, one of American comedy’s best kept secrets. He was kept or kept himself hidden for years, an awkward and antisocial kid who, he says, didn’t have an in with any particular group, didn’t get invited places, and wasn’t all that attractive. But man, this working class funny man with the mind of a giant makes thousands of us glad he has an axe to grind now.

If you missed his Tourgasm, which took him on tour across the country with fellow comics and comedians he nurtured along (gorgeous cookie-themed Gary Goldman; equally hilarious hard-ass Bobby Kelly; and neophyte Jay Davis), then hopefully you caught Dane Cook: Vicious Circle, wherein he does a solo two-hour stand-up show.

Cook’s directness, his pure honesty (which we know makes the BEST comedy) makes the humor fly as his adolescent male fantasies make way for hysterical metaphors riding on his stories of childhood (and seeing his father in a shortie robe), teen years (and his imperative to commit a crime, a B&E, which results in merely kicking in two doors, which likely drive the homeowners mad with wonder from then on), his relationship years (and his definitive and detailed recounting of fights and break-ups), and a multitude of other related and random topics.

Cook integrates his own details, though, by using the direct address approach, whereby he describes feelings, actions, events, and minor incidents and habits

as if we the audience (you) are doing the doing. (Of course, to act out as he does on stage with such energy and intensity would have us spinning more than his comedy has us catapulted into paroxisms of laugh.)

His comedy is innocent, farting and fooling around, and it is ironic and angry and fresh at the same time—his descriptions and repertoire working in dive-bombing detailing of vampirish drunken night antics, movie-going etiquette that leaves much to be desired, and science fiction analogies for overdone sexcapades a man inevitably craves and indulges in whenever and wherever possible.

I’m being purposely vague, so I not only don’t “give away� any spoiler material but also so I don’t bastardize the unique methodology and maneuvering that I could come nowhere near replicating here.

Given how comedy functions

at an optimum when it involves truth, when it is exploits by exaggeration, when it expresses the ultimate by extracting the minutiae out of the mundane, and when it uses role reversal and other techniques most common to all of us, Dane Cook has elevated humor and himself to highest realms of celebrity and most-sought-after status. But at the same time, he has kept his act and his backstage persona most accessible, reaching all of us and making us want more.

Few things beat reality TV and day- and nighttime dramas that the featured star being real. In ratty ol’ tee-shirt and jeans, with bed head and somewhat scruffy face, the deep bass and rugged animation of Dane Cook keeps contemporary comedy going (and an audience spinout and a box-office sellout).

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