Greg Proops Provides Effortless Eloquence on His New Album French Drug Deal

Time seems to have both compressed and elongated since the pandemic began, like an earthworm constantly changing length as it moves forward. I’ll try to remember when an event happened, and soon realize that my estimate was an entire year off from reality. Luckily, though, there seems to be a new way to measure post-pandemic time: the release of new Greg Proops albums. 

For the last two New Years Eves, the actor, comedian, and frequent Whose Line Is It Anyway? guest has recorded comedy LPs at Punch Line San Francisco. The first, In the City, was taped as the final moments of 2021 ticked away, and you can certainly tell; there’s a bitterness—hilariously delivered—that tinges the whole show. Proops pokes fun at Capitol rioters, anti-vaxxers, and conservatives of every variety in a way that feels as much like a cathartic exorcism of the frustrating past 12 months as it does a comedy album.

Proops’ new LP, French Drug Deal (though mid-set he proposes the alternate title I Demand Fresh Water: An Ocean Storm Comes in Gradually), is comparatively whimsical. That’s not to say he does away with his sarcasm and dry wit on the new album (French Drug Deal has that in spades, especially when Proops mentions the woes of bespectacled people in the rain) or that In the City lacks imagination (as always, Proops is a master of simile and evocative language). It’s just that a year has passed Proops by, and the change is palpable in his subject matter. French Drug Deal involves an extended tangent about bats, an anecdote about The View, a bit about performing at then-Prince now-King Charles’ birthday, and multiple stories starting off with travel destinations—the latter of which is certainly a sign of the times.