David Cross

David Cross

Emo's, Friday, March 19 It's no easy feat for a stand-up comedian to hold court in the middle of a punk rock show. On the other hand, it's hard to imagine the Laugh Barn in Anytown, USA, being a much better venue for a sardonic, left-leaning contrarian like David Cross. Like other comedians, Cross joked about how his breeder friends constantly harp about how hard parenting is. Unlike other comedians, his clincher was, "If you really want hard, try talking your girlfriend into her third consecutive abortion!" You can imagine the gasps from an unknowing audience that thought it was getting Yakov Smirnoff. Cross went on to advocate lowering the age of consent to 15. "These girls are out there fucking some 15-year-old kid who pops after 20 seconds, but I'm a grown man and I've got skills!" Since Friday's showcase was promoting NOFX's Punkvoter initiative, Cross' political observations were right at home. Cross has a head for deliciously shocking ironies, like the church vehemently opposing gay marriage right on the heels of the sex abuse cover-up. "It's like they're saying, 'I have a little boy to rape, and he's got the sweetest, tightest ass, but I'm not going to marry him because that would be wrong.'" In a world brimming with page-two absurdities like a religious group sending letters to Marines stationed in Iraq asking them to pray for President Bush, Cross ably ferrets out the hypocritical thought patterns and excoriates them with delight. He finished his winning set with a karaoke deconstruction of Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the U.S.A." that culminated with the sound of God having sex with Princess Diana. Those folks at the Laugh Barn don't know what they're missing.