I’m not sure why this week’s writing
started with the Chair Company. I made a New Year’s resolution to write once a
week, and unfortunately, I have gotten stuck on this show. Since Friendship, I've wondered how
long Tim Robinson can ride whatever wave he’s on. last. Nobody has done cringe comedy this expertly
since Andy Kaufmann. Jim Carey could do absurd, but his cartoonish gifts made
it instantly recognizable as slapstick. Tim Robinson, on the hand, looks like
he’s just catching onto the absurdity, only for the punchline to unravel into
plausibility.
His response to events makes everything worse by a magnitude you can't appreciate until it’s too
late. You’ve already followed the character down the rabbit hole. The Chair
Company is like one I Think You Should Leave sketch taken to marathon length. I’m not sure
if it’s all the 30th anniversary articles on Infinite Jest this
week, but The Chair Company evokes a lot of the same feelings, albeit
with a less tortured soul than David Foster Wallace. Infinite Jest was
similarly prone to discursive tangents that were often gorgeous, sometimes
funny, and often exhausting. Robinson has somehow managed to find the pacing. You
are rewarded just enough to keep up with him as he goes right on digging, shame
be damned.
Part of the magic is the writing,
the casual asides like Wendy’s Carvers. It is handed to you with zero
explanation. You are handed the next aside before a moment’s notice. It’s like
watching your groceries bagged and not daring to ask the cashier to put
something back because all hell will break loose. This is Aldi. There are ten equally
miserable people behind you. You just bought whatever you did because you were
following the process. Like I said, I’ll be pissed if I never see a Wendy’s
Carvers, but for now I will shut up and move along.
I never found insult comedy all
that appealing, but I do recall in the eulogies of Dom Rickles, it was said
that he had a way of making you feel like you were in on the joke. I think that
Tim Robinson manages to achieve something similar, though the mechanism is
different, it’s the relentless asides. Something magical happens when you watch
Tim Robinson in groups, especially with I Think You Should Leave. Whatever
you didn’t find initially funny, someone else did. When you return to it, it is
somehow funnier than you initially thought. You start to speak the language of
the show, then you start to wonder why isn’t there a clothing store like Dan
Flashes? I have never experienced anything like this.
In returning to the question how
long can he keep this up? It got me wondering whether a rabbit hole can be
bottomless. Or, is that you dig enough
that something resembling truth is eventually uncovered? For Christ’s sake, we’ve arrived at place
where Q-Anon looks like it was legitimately onto something.
In the case of Q-Anon it’s
deliciously ironic. They will never be able to say “see, told’ya so” because
they misunderstood the joke was on them. I suppose there is a certain sadness to that,
but I can’t find pity for them. They’ve done enough damage to the country. I’m not
sure if Robinson intended to take on the conspiracy theory with The Chair
Company, or if this is just how we’re all going to have to live now. I suppose that I can feel some relief that
nobody will fire a rifle in a Wendy’s Carvers any time soon.
