Nate Bargatze has been making the media rounds recently. Not only hosting his own podcast, Nateland, but he has also appeared on Never Not Funny, twice on the Ryen Russillo Podcast, and mostly recently The Joe Rogan Experience. It was on his first appearance with Russillo where I discovered him before downloading his 2015 comedy special album, Full Time Magic. Right off the hop, the first few jokes introduce Bargatze’s deadpan, self-deprecating style. He tells the story of his wife pointing out an ex-boyfriend on a boat while they were out one day. Then he launches into a bit that if he wanted to fight the guy, he would have to swim out to him and have the ex help up get in before the melee could ensue.
The material is nothing too original, it’s jokes dudes would tell each other at the bar but after they had been honed and perfected for several years. His bit about trying to get in shape by buying P90x and being more impressed with the before picture of the workout model hits the nail on the head for many of us. Some of the highlights touch on going to community college, his love of chain restaurants, time travel and various MTV shows.
The main show closes with drinking stories about an Indian casino and getting locked out of a hotel room naked in his two year old daughter’s lifetime. “If she hears this and asks, ‘oh is that when you were in college?’ No, it was when you were the most dependent on me.” There is no “I’m going to tell you like it is” to Bargatze’s humour, instead he comes across as a slow talking version of one of your buddies who has plenty of funny asides about day-to-day life. Nate Bargatze’s newest Netflix special, The Greatest Average American, is out on March 18, 2021.
Rating: Very good/good/fair/poor
The Light Appears 