[Photo by Rollogrady]
PHILLYBURBS: His comedy, which doesn’t hide his left-leaning views, is satiric and visceral. Cross, who often appears on HBO’s free-wheeling “Real Time With Bill Maher,” pulls no punches. Unlike many of his comedic peers, he isn’t afraid to offend anyone. The independent rock-loving Cross has verbally drubbed Creed frontman Scott Stapp for creating aesthetically unpleasing post-grunge albums. “I say what I believe,” says Cross. “I don’t believe in holding back whether I’m performing in front of an audience or during an interview.” Cross’ wars of words have yet to get him in trouble. Last year, he played in a poker tournament with Stapp. “He was a last-second replacement and I thought that he probably didn’t know who I was,” Cross says. “He came up and pulled me toward him, non-violently, and said, ‘Thanks for the words.’ That was it.” MORE
PEGASUS NEWS: Dressed in the Seattle grunge uniform of baseball cap, plaid shirt, and facial scruff, he used
a neat ice-breaking technique to open the show: He sang a song which basically summarized all of the topics and points he’d be covering in his routine. It was a wide swath: the battiness of old age, the guilt trips induced by green products at Whole Foods, his ironic addiction to the television show Intervention. He had killer punch lines but much of his strength lay in his delivery, which combined the faux-innocent curiosity of a child with the needling savvy of the wise-ass in the back of the room. He’s also willing to talk about anything, and that included a prolonged riff on drugs: the graphic effects his recreational drug use has wreaked on his gastro-intestinal system, and cunning impressions of the junkies that congregate in the park next to his New York apartment, and people on acid going to the store to buy batteries. God bless him, he tackled the two topics most people avoid, politics and religion, both of which he’s covered scathingly on releases such as 2002’s Shut Up You Fucking Baby! and ’04’s It’s Not Funny. One interesting development: He said he wasn’t as angry as he used to be, and that he views movements such as the tea parties with more detachment and resignation. MORE
CITY PAPER: In this week’s Agenda section, we told you all about Philly comic Todd Glass, a sharply sarcastic, yet genuinely sweet guy who’s touring with David Cross. And then we thought: Why not talk to Cross, the silly goose behind Arrested Development and Mr. Show, too? He gave us the scoop on his new book, Mormons and his eventual plan to make a humorous soups line. MORE