Wiseguys Comedy: Dave Attell

It’s a truism that the life of a traveling stand-up comedian is a lonely one, and comics often play that particular downside of their profession for painful laughs. But nobody knows the sad truth of the situation, and articulates its contradictions better, than comedian Dave Attell.

In fact, his most popular turn in culture was his Comedy Central travelogue show, Insomniac With Dave Attell, in which a camera followed the solitary comedian around after his comedy gigs through the late-night scene of various cities. The unorthodox show worked because of all the oddballs Attell would wind up socializing with in the dark, always feeling right at home because no one could out-lonely him, out-crazy him or out-self-medicate with alcohol. A stand-up comedian alone and sleepless on the road, he was among a very familiar lot.

Attell’s newest stint, on the other hand, is Dave’s Old Porn. If never getting any sleep helped him to explore the nighttime underbelly of seedy cities around the country, it also propelled him into a substantial porn habit—something apparently quite common among the hotel-frequenting stand-up crowd. Each episode features an invited guest, like comedian Marc Maron, sitting on a couch with Attell and one of his favorite porn actors, watching and commenting on classic clips of the porn star doing what they do best. Some of the conversation is played for laughs, but much of it is oddly serious, lending the show an air of uncomfortable normality, an essential characteristic of much of Attell’s biting comedy. (Jacob Stringer)