Recap Paul F. Tompkins at the Lakeshore

He didn't say so onstage, but the always-dapper Mr. Show alumnus Paul F. Tompkins was recording his yet-to-be-titled sophomore album on Saturday at the Lakeshore. After opener Drew Michael almost pulled off a sorta-funny bit on stalking and masturbation (hey, stick to what you know), and Dan Telfer then shared his deep love of dinosaurs, Tompkins came out for the early show, reached for the microphone, and watched the cord come out. Though his set got off to that seemingly rough start, Tompkins was in rare form, able to extract laughs from the crowd by simply striking a friendly face and pointing at the useless mike. He then warned the crowd that, yes, his set would be mostly talking—and he'd be talking the most out of everyone that preceded him, and no amount of watch-tapping would deter him from finishing. The man had a purpose.

But rather than dive right into the new album's material—and it was hard to predict what that would be, since 2007's Impersonal was culled from his then-entire stand-up career—Tompkins instead mused about his needlessly fancy bottled Voss water and the slow realization on his way from the airport that he'd be in Chicago on the weekend before St. Patrick's Day. "In my line of work, everyday is like St. Patrick's Day," adding that he treats himself to a beer every time he chases all the snakes out of his house. And then, after fussing with the placement of his stool, his water, and the music stand presumably with his setlist, it was time, as Tompkins said, "to start the material."

What followed was a series of bits that, while solid, weren't as polished as anything on Impersonal. The set was still thoroughly enjoyable from the outset: He opened with a refreshingly entertaining take on the well-tread topic of New Yorkers and their disbelief that people exist outside of NYC. Tompkins explained that his favorite kind of New Yorkers are New Yorkers that are out of their city, because they love to ask people what time it is, and then tell them what they could be doing if they were in the Big Apple—a city that's got the size of Italy under control. "11:30 in the morning? Man, if this was New York, we could be unraveling a mummy," Tompkins said in a thick New Yowker accent before reacting as the other baffled participant in this imaginary conversation. When asked why they'd be unraveling a mummy, he replied simply, "What's he got to hide under all those bandages? I don't trust him." If you're ever bored in the middle of the night in Chicago, remember: You could be in New York, drinking turpentine with your son at a 24-hour bar, going blind. Or eating an entire wedding cake in your bathrobe, ruining one couple's magic night.

Tompkins also did playlets as the hero in every horror movie, why every new father seems to think he'd take a bullet for his baby, the horrible un-hip and flawed logic of Go Ask Alice (the 1971 book supposedly uses the term "freak wharf" to describe a mental hospital), and how his love of amusement parks is directly related to his deep hatred for money. Like he does in his popular canned-peanut-brittle bit, Tompkins takes a fine-toothed comb to the idiocy that is the smashed coin: They cost entirely too much at 51 cents, will only wind up in a box, and have apparently spawned a cottage industry of smashed-penny wallets for the same breed of idiot that wrote letters to the editor on Impersonal. "What's the biggest number of smashed pennies you've seen at once?" asks the sad soul with a collection. "Is it less than 12?"

All in all, Tompkins' set on Saturday was respectable. The bar had been set pretty high with Impersonal, and while it's unfair to compare the night to that album, it's only natural. All performers have their entire lives to write their first albums, and then a year or two to craft their sophomore efforts. It's entirely possible that the late set housed different material—and not this set of cut-out-feeling bits from Impersonal. Some new bits didn't go anywhere, like the one about his dissatisfaction with do-not-disturb signs at hotels. And while it was memorable, his pie-versus-cake debate didn't go anywhere either—although his theory that potheads should have invented a frosted pie by now is spot-on. This night was no slam-dunk, but more of the same from Paul F. Tompkins is hardly something to find fault with.