Life On Stage

Long in the game but short on evidence, Greg Fitzsimmons' debut comedy album comes some 25 years after he launched a standup career, and finally offers his radio, podcast, and comedy club fans some physical evidence that the cranky cretin is quite funny. Folks like Louis C.K., Howard Stern, and Adam Carolla heartily agree, as Fitzsimmons' has been employed by all three, but he's also a mix of the above names, with C.K.'s smart, slow burn, Carolla's everyman attitude, and Stern's horny Ultraman stance combining into one big ball of crumbling man, with male pattern baldness included. On Life On Stage, Fitzsimmons maintains the "I am a God" and "I am damned" balance Stern lost years ago, contrasting rampant machismo (first disappointing thing this anti-Adonis notices after getting new glasses, his wife has sprouted her first chin hair) with hatred of self (Fitzsimmons to his barber: "Buzz around the ears, I'll just sit here and cry"). The great "Hot Babysitter" is the two at equal volume as a home surveillance system goes all-out master tech and Fitzsimmons drowns in the quicksand of becoming a 21st century peeping tom. His appreciation of hometown Tarrytown, New York is clever ("You have every kind of people here. Hispanic, White, Hispanic, Asian, Hispanic, Black, Hispanic…") but his credit advice is iffy ("It's just a number. It's not like, if you pay it down to zero, clown's drop from the sky and suck your dick"), and somewhere in the middle there is sincere jealousy over a newborn's breastfeed-poop-nap routine. Think the movie American Beauty with the shame filter broken off, or just think caustic middle-age crisis comedy. Either way, fans should embrace Fitzsimmons' long-awaited, quite funny debut.