Nick Offerman is not one to mince words: the man enjoys sex with his wife.
The comedian, best-known to audiences as the professionally procrastinating man’s-man Ron Swanson on TV’s Parks & Recreation, also feels free to pontificate at length about said sex with his wife in his public appearances. At a Bay Area show last year, he declared his “voracious sexual appetite” could only be sated by “taking what’s legally mine” in Mullally, whom he referred to as his “personal property.”
Now, in a tour together, Offerman and Mullally embark on what’s sure to be a coast-to-coast battle of the sexes. Mullally’s no withering flower herself, known for being strong and independent, and in the tour’s promotional photo she’s seen next to Offerman icily skewering a pair of wieners with a barbeque poker. It’s about as subtle as the title of the tour: Summer of 69: No Apostrophe.
The reason Offerman’s solo routine works in nonoffensive fashion is the same reason Mullally’s character Karen Walker worked so well on the hit sitcom Will & Grace: it’s completely over-the-top. Yes, Offerman in real life is a brawny guy who likes his meat rare and owns a woodworking shop, but he also knows that in Ron Swanson, he’d found a schtick that worked. In performance, he peppers his set with a constant high-pitched toddler’s giggle, letting the crowd know that he’s merely playing up that schtick to ridiculous extremes.
Ah, but remember the barbeque poker. Should Offerman pick up his guitar and sing his newly composed ode to vacation sex, “Beef on the Stone,” with verse after verse full of entendre and not-so-entendre about he and Mullally’s bedroom activities, expect it to make an arrival at the Masonic — upon Offerman’s backside, likely, and to uproarious laughter, surely.
