Among releases scheduled nationwide:Pauly Shore has turned to politics.
Whether you see this as the sign of the apocalypse, or as a sign that maybe everything is going to turn out OK after all, depends on your feelings about politics as they are today and Shore as he is now.
If you are undecided on these issues, here is one bipartisan statement on which we can all agree: In a political season when even Big Bird can have an impact on the coming presidential election, Shore should be given his shot.
Shore comes to Snickerz on Tuesday.
The comic says his approach to political humor is different from that of Bill Maher or Jon Stewart.
“That stuff is very left and very harsh,” he says. “It’s also very funny, but it’s a little bit too cynical for me. My stuff is more, ‘Hey, let’s stop fighting and just dance.’
“There are things I like about the Republican Party and things I don’t like,” Shore says. “There are things I like about the Democrats and things I don’t like.”
To achieve political awareness these days, one must grow accustomed to not knowing from one minute to the next whether to laugh or cry.
In light of this, there is certainly more than enough material for both comedian and tragedian alike.
“The media turned the debates into a UFC fight,” Shore says. “We live in a reality TV world. This political stuff is like the Kardashians only everyone’s wearing blue suits.”
It wasn’t so long ago that Shore was the Weasel, a whimsical concoction of surfer dude, stoner, lothario, pitchman and sprite who commandeered the MTV airwaves for a while.
Unlike some comics who move on to renounce their sillier selves, Shore says the Weasel is still his pride and joy (not to mention his bread and butter).
“That’s something I will always be,” he says. “I don’t want to smash the Weasel. I don’t want to smack the Weasel. I want to embrace the Weasel. It’s part of who I am. It’s part of who we are. We are all weasely.”
Shore hastens to add that he is more multidimensional than his Weasel character may suggest.
“I think I am a lot like Jerry Lewis,” he says. “He does these outrageous things, but underneath, he’s kind of like serious.
“Life is serious,” Shore says. “It really is. It’s a serious thing. Like everybody, I wake up at 7, 8, or 9 in the morning and think, ‘(Expletive), I wish I could just sit here and not (expletive) do anything.’
“But our vision for ourselves and what we want to accomplish in life gets us out bed and takes us over,” he says.
For the moment, Shore’s vision involves a comedy special called “Pauly-tics.”
It will be sold online in a manner that Shore hopes is lucratively reminiscent of the shockingly successful strategy that Louis C.K. used to sell a special almost a year ago.
Louis C.K. bypassed the usual middlemen, produced the special using his own money and sold it online directly to his fans for $5 per download. He made $1 million in just 10 days.
Shore has sweetened the pot by offering a $100,000 sweepstakes prize.
“I need to score the downloads before I can release the money,” Shore says. “It’ll be brilliant if the downloads come in. Other than that it’ll be retarded.”
Shore says the special is for people who don’t know politics and aren’t into politics.
“They’re the sort of people who think, ‘Why should I care about that? I just want to get (expletive).’ ”
Fans whose interest in Shore has remained strong over the years still want to party with the Weasel, and Shore says he obliges them when he can. But he admits that he isn’t the party animal in his 40s that he was in his 20s.
“We all wish we could still drink every night and stay out every night,” Shore says. “But my body won’t allow it, and I am (expletive) pissed off about that.”
Fame is not precisely measurable, but Shore undoubtedly enjoys less of it than he did in the ’90s. But Shore says he is happy with his current celebrity.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I am still pretty super-famous. People know who I am. I never wanted to end up like Jim Carrey or Madonna. I like pumping my own gas and doing my own laundry.”
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