Nick Offerman lent his woodworking cred to a single malt whiskey brand last night, hosting a screening of the Balvenie’s Handmade: A Celebration of American Craftsmanship. “They out of the blue invited me to come be part of this event,” he told us at the Crosby Street Hotel. “I said, ‘You’re celebrating people who make things with their hands,’ which is sort of my religion. And so to be invited … is like some sort of crazy masturbatory dream.” Speaking of crazy masturbatory dreams, Offerman also filled us in on a disturbing special order he’s been getting from the set of Parks and Recreation: “One member of our crew is trying to get me to make him a large wooden dildo, complete with balls. I don’t think it’s for his own personal use. I think there’s some sort of humorous intent behind it, but I’m not sure what it is.”
As for what he might build for the rest of his Pawnee family, Offerman said, “The first thing I would make would be an enormous, impossibly strong longbow and set of arrows which could only be drawn by Chris Pratt. Then while I was making the rest of the gifts, he would bring me fresh venison and elk that he would slay with the weapons I had made him. I would make Amy [Poehler] the most charismatic piece of furniture I could come up with. [It] would be a coffee table of glory, or a headboard of infamy.” What might a headboard of infamy look like? “It would probably be spalted maple from an enormous slab of an enormous tree, and probably have some antlers incorporated into it. And perhaps some wood-burned Latin characters spelling out ‘Champion of the Earth.’” Let’s just hope he doesn’t gift her what he calls the “strangest thing” ever made in his shop: “It was some sort of New Age medicinal stool for ladies,” he explained. “It’s a three-legged stool that holds a kettle beneath it, and the emanations from the potion in the kettle rise up to affect that part of a lady’s anatomy that’s in contact with the stool.” Who knew woodwork could be so perverted?
