Recap David Cross at Riverside Theater

David Cross visited Milwaukee’s Riverside Theater Saturday night on his first stand-up tour in more than five years in order to promote his new book I Drink For A Reason. He also screened a five-minute clip from his new sitcom, The Increasingly Poor Decisions Of Todd Margaret, which will air on British television later this year. Cross didn’t mention upcoming film projects like Kung Fu Panda: The Kaboom Of Doom and Alvin And The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, but that’s probably just as well.

Oh yeah, he also performed about 80 minutes of stand-up comedy. Cross was never less than entertaining, but stand-up comedy is clearly not his passion anymore, which was evidenced in a set that frequently felt dashed-off and undercooked.

"The time has come to tear this place a new asshole, and then we'll stitch that new asshole up with jokes," Cross sang in a smarmy, über-show-bizzy introductory song, though in the end, he was only able to deliver on the latter. Cross’ fans are divided on whether his forays into political and religious commentary result in his most brilliant comedic observations, or simply devolve into tiresome, rote whininess. Consider me a member of both camps: I think Cross is at his best when he takes a pick-axe to our society’s shakiest foundations. I also find self-righteousness to be Cross’ biggest weakness—political material is hard to do well, which compounds its danger, but when Cross hits the mark there’s nobody better.

Perhaps because Cross is now playing bigger venues, there wasn’t much ripping of assholes Saturday night. There were nods to the health-care debate and the whacked-out right-wing fringe—as well as de rigueur ironic racist jokes that felt fresher in 2002—but Cross’ musings were misshapen and rarely went beyond “What’s the deal with these assholes?”-style griping. Cross also seemed strangely eager to talk about something less weighty. Maybe political humor isn’t as much fun when you don’t have George W. Bush to kick around anymore.

Rather than risk offending the audience, Cross leaned a little too heavily on stock stand-up tropes. It’s never a good sign when a comedian says “I’m not above doing airplane humor,” especially a comic who’s rightfully considered one of the most biting voices of his generation. But there Cross was, reading directly out of a SkyMall catalog and musing about all the craaazy products they have for sale these days. Griping about ridiculously unnecessary products is an old Cross stand-by—anybody out there remember Squagels?—and while the SkyMall bit was amusing, it wasn’t particularly inspired.

Elsewhere, Cross incorporated elements of sketch comedy into his act, planting a sign language interpreter and an obnoxious blogger in the audience to “spontaneously” interrupt his show. The blogger bit was Cross’ opportunity to indirectly comment on the abuse he’s taken online in recent years over various minor offenses, including his appearance in the pre-Squeakquel Alvin And The Chipmunks movie. Not surprisingly, Cross played the poor victim to the grossly unfair, prosecutorial fan bent on misquoting and hating him at all costs. But while Cross hasn’t deserved a lot of the criticism he’s received from anonymous critics on the Internet, he might want to ask himself whether he really cares about stand-up comedy anymore. Because after Saturday’s show, the answer appears to be no.