Dante Powell’s The Squirrels Get Fat is a entertaining stand-up comedy download album by a comic you cannot but like.
Two thirds of the set has two different but connected narratives. The first is fish-out-of-water stories about a guy from Louisiana who ended up in Iowa and liking it. The second is Black people versus white people observations. True, the latter is a rather tired trope but Dante Powell makes these observations fresh and interesting.
Imagine a guy from Louisiana who moves to Iowa for love only to be dumped there. He discovers a whole new world of seasons, an odd memorial to WW I soldier, and yes, racism. Most important, he discovers a place with really nice people.
This review being written a couple of days after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Dante Powell’s bits about his dad warning him about Congressman Steve King and racial profiling at Old Navy sound a little too nice. When I listened to them before the event, they sounded like finely balanced and written material on a topic that could put the Iowa audience off. Dante Powell gets his point across quite elegantly. Now …
Dante Powell is an optimist at heart. His story about doing a corporate performance where a sign language interpreter was hired for deaf employees focuses on how things are improving.
At the same time though, Powell builds a very clever trap set-up by the signer not doing the sign for the N word. He then talks about how to look up how to sign the N word and catches a few people unaware that this is a gotcha.
The last third of Dante Powell’s stand-up comedy download The Squirrels Get Fat shows how varied Powell is. There is a great bit on lifelike sex dolls and hand me downs. The show closes with a rather unusual take on texting and driving that gets a point across in a most original way.
The Squirrels Get Fat by Dante Powell is the kind of stand-up comedy download you will go back to time and again. I would not hesitate to spend money to see this guy live.
The Squirrels Get Fat
Dante Powell
Stand-up Comedy MP3 download
Stand Up! Records 2020
Stand Up! Records has a vast catalogue of great stand-up comedy. Most are reviewed here.
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