“I'm not Ron Swanson,” ran the chorus of an encore sung by Nick Offerman at the packed Palace Theatre last night. But that was clear to everyone in the audience from the start.

The comedian and social commentator shares with his beloved “Parks and Rec” character a love for canoeing and woodworking, as well as some imposing facial hair and a quiet and sharply deadpan sense of humor. Unlike the show's rugged individualist, however, Offerman leans decidedly to the left, and doesn't think “liberal” is a dirty word.

Wearing rumpled jeans, work boots, and a shirt adorned with squirrels and pine trees, Offerman alternated easily over the course of a nearly two-hour solo show between bemused observations and satiric songs, on which he accompanied his rich baritone on acoustic guitar, and which wouldn't have been out of place at a sixties coffee house.

“I'm somewhere on the spectrum between standup comic and Michael Buble,” he noted.

With the exception of one wistful song from the point of view of a bee co-written with Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, most of the songs were written with Mark Rivers. “Life would be a breeze if we'd stayed up in the trees,” one otherwise profanity-laden number cheerfully opined, while another song took on the point of view of Brett Kavanaugh. (“I like beer,” ran the chorus.)

Though Offerman tossed in a few local jokes, getting in some digs at Michigan and giving Columbus credit even if “doesn't have the pizzazz of your Toledos and your Akrons,” he mostly stuck with a more universal message, which is that “we're all stupid. It's part of our recipe as humans.” And that maybe we should work at being less so, instead of pointing fingers at other equally flawed human beings.

With deliberate delivery and relaxed demeanor masking deeply sardonic humor, the comedian danced between offering his own uncensored opinions and taking on the role of straight white “mansplainer,” luring the audience in to exploring untenable views by making them sound initially rational – and then occasionally breaking character to damp down his own outrage at the views he was expressing seconds earlier. It's a comic highwire act that he made seem effortless.

Offerman did the opposite of pandering to his most popular role, saving all references to “Parks and Rec” for the encore, which included both the song distinguishing that character from the individual who played him and a crowd-pleasing version of “5000 Candles in the Wind,” a tribute to a deceased miniature horse performed in the show by Chris Pratt as the leader of the band MouseRat.

But if Ron wasn't referenced directly until the end, his shadowy presence was there throughout the show, offering an image of unconflicted masculinity against which Offerman could bob and weave, sometimes finding comfort in it, and other times setting himself in direct opposition to it.

Offerman finally comes off as far more human, conflicted and compassionate than his alter-ego, with a saving humility that suggests a version of masculinity with a lot more wiggle room than the one Ron clings to, and a grace that allows the audience to make peace with the constant blunders involved in life as a human being.