Brian Posehn is a hilarious stand-up comedian with a legendary beard, who you’ve seen on The Sarah Silverman Program, Mr. Show, and as part of The Comedians of Comedy. His first ever one hour special, The Fartist, is available on Netflix and CD/DVD. On the other hand, I like asking important questions about fighting babies, Comic-Con fun runs and Time Sherpas. These are 5 hypothetical questions for Brian Posehn:
1. You’re a huge fan of metal. You’ve written and acted in episodes of Metalocalypse and you perform awesome songs like “Metal By Numbers.” Let’s say a demon appeared to you with an enchanted boom box, and said he would play you the most metal song scientifically possible – it’s unbelievably, orgasmically metal – but as soon as you’ve finished listening, you go to hell and suffer for all eternity. Will you listen to the song?
No.
Not worth it?
No, I’m a parent. That would be incredibly irresponsible.
As a metalhead, do I want to hear it? Yeah. Am I gonna like it? Probably not. Because the more extreme stuff, if it’s not well-produced or doesn’t have a hook to it – if it’s just like, “blaaaah,” for three and a half minutes, and no chorus or breakdown, I’m probably not gonna like it and ultimately won’t be worth it. Cause the bands that people say are the best or the most extreme, those are kinda my least favorite… including the band Extreme, which isn’t extreme at all.
2. You’re also a big fan of comic books. You’re currently co-writing Deadpool with Gerry Duggan. San Diego Comic-Con is coming up soon. Let’s say you could sprint through the Comic-Con exhibit hall and any items you put into your giant Fringe bag, you get to keep. It’s like one of those Super Toy Runs Nickelodeon used to do. What stuff would you want to make sure you grabbed? You have 10 minutes.
I’m gonna hit up the Silver Age comic book guys first, and if it’s free, I’m gonna grab the craziest books I can grab. The most Steve Ditko Spider-Man I can get. All the big ticket items. Whatever I see on display. Cause that’s the thing about all the sellers, they’ve always got their most expensive stuff on a board behind them.
Is there one Silver Age comic you’d really want?
Yeah, first appearance of Spider-Man. Amazing Fantasy. I guess that’s kinda the obvious one, but I actually do collect early Spider-Man, and I’m not making Zach Galifianakis money yet. When I do, that’ll be the first thing I go after, but I’ve only got a couple of Steve Ditko’s in my collection. I love those, but I bought them before my son, and now it’d be hard to justify spending more than $1000 on a comic book.
Speaking of my kid, I would also run to the Lego booth and get all the Lego exclusives. Whatever toys he’s into now, I would get all the toy things. Then I’d run by and creep out whatever hot girl who’s on some show. If Summer Glau is there, I’ll try to creep out Summer Glau.
3. Let’s talk about your terrific new album, The Fartist. There’s a joke you tell about how you don’t want people to punch your baby, which is a perfectly reasonable request. However, let’s say your baby was an amazing MMA fighter, on the level of Rampage Jackson. A Vegas promoter offers you and your wife $5,000,000 – and will pay your baby’s entire college tuition – if your son steps into the Octogon for one night against Anderson Silva. You get to make the final call. What do you decide? Remember: Your baby is a fighting prodigy, but not invulnerable to harm.
I would talk to him about it. We would watch tapes of Silva… Well, people don’t watch tapes anymore. We would watch YouTube clips of Silva, and if my son felt confident, I would sign-off on it.
Knowing your son, do you think he would do it?
No. He’s already afraid of everything, because he’s got me as a dad. I’ve already ruined him.
Originally, before I had a kid, I thought it’d be fun to have a Shaun White kid. If you don’t know Shaun’s White’s history, he was skateboarding at three, I think, and doing ramps. He was doing half-pipes with pros at age five or six. I saw him at this MTV event when he was a little kid. And I thought it’d be fun to have a kid like that!
But there’s no way my kid is gonna be like that, because if my kid stands on the couch, I’m like, “Get down! You’re gonna fall off and break your face. You’ll get a horrible head injury and concussions are no fun – and don’t go to sleep, cause then you’ll go into a coma!” I’m that dad already.
4. At the beginning of the album, you talk about giving up “stripping clubs” for your wife. Let’s say you went down a different life path, and you decided to open up the ULTIMATE strip club. First of all, what would you name your strip club? Second, what would be some of the club’s key features?
We did it in Deadpool: I would call it “Amazing Fantasy” and see if we get sued by Marvel. I think that would be a pretty good comic book nerd name for a strip joint.
We’d go comic book or metal. Either the girls would look like Vampirella and dance around to Rob Zombie songs, or they straight-up dress like Harley Quinn and do nerd fantasies. So you’d follow a girl dressed as Poison Ivy, maybe dancing to “Faster Pussycat,” that shitty song by Poison Ivy, to keep with the theme. Or you’d have girls dancing to Slayer that look right out of a Marilyn Manson video, with the black pigtails, Catholic school girl skirt, covered in Suicide Girl tattoos and that whole look.
I think either way, this club would do very well.
Those girls didn’t exist when I was single. There was no Suicide Girls, so that’s the fantasy for me. Not to give too much away and be too creepy, but that, and the girls who wear “I Heart Nerds” t-shirts, didn’t exist when I was single. So it’s like, “Where the f*** were you?”
5. On The Fartist, you talk about hating the new Star Wars movies with a fiery passion. Let’s say you acquired a time machine and a Time Sherpa…
[Laughs]
You know, a Time Sherpa. They come with the time machine.
I’m seeing Time Sherpa at the Roxy this weekend. They’re opening for The Sword. “Time Sherpa” is the best metal band title that isn’t used.
So, the Sherpa can guide you to do one of the following:
- Alter the past so the Star Wars prequels were excellent movies, better than the original trilogy, but there’s 2% more suffering in Africa. OR:
- Alter the past so that all major suffering in Africa is practically eliminated, but the prequels are now a lot worse. They’re as bad as the Star Wars Christmas special, but with no camp value whatsoever.
I’d go for the latter, because I don’t care anymore about Star Wars. I’m already burned. You’re not winning me back at this point. So might as well make them even worse. There should be a walking hot dog. That’s worse than Jar Jar Binks. Have a walking hot dog who’s in every scene now.
That’d be the ultimate special edition.
Plus, I don’t want to make Africa worse. Would it get out that I was the guy who had the choice to make Africa worse or better?
No, nobody would ever know.
So I’d just have to live with that, and I couldn’t live with that. And might as well make Star Wars s***tier and make more nerds mad.
Geoffrey Golden is the Editor in Chief of The Devastator: The Quarterly Comedy Magazine For Humans! Header via.
