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Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias Coming To Fraze This August

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Gabriel Iglesias is one of America’s most successful stand-up comedians performing to sold-out concerts around the world. He is also one of the most watched comedians on YouTube with over half a billion views and has over 24 million fans across social media.

He’ll be performing at Fraze Pavilion on Sat, Aug 20th at 8:30pm.  Tickets go on sale Feb 26th at 10am.

$70 – Plaza
$65 – Orchestra
$45 – Lawn & Terrace
(Ticket prices increase $5 day of show)
For your convenience, you can purchase tickets at the  Fraze FanFare Store located in Town & Country Shopping Center, www.fraze.com, www.etix.com or Charge-by-Phone at 1-800-514-3849

In 2018, Gabe was included in The Hollywood Reporter’s “Top 40 Comedy Players” issue alongside comedy giants Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock and Lorne Michaels. The comedian has also had the distinct honor of being one of the few to headline and sell-out Madison Square Garden in New York, Staples Center in Los Angeles and Sydney Opera House in Australia.

Gabriel Iglesias is the youngest of six children, raised by a single mother in Long Beach, CA. It was during his childhood that he developed a strong sense of humor to deal with the obstacles he faced. In 1997, he set out to hone his comedic skills, and performed stand-up anywhere he could find an audience; including biker bars and hole-in-the-wall joints. Gabriel’s stand-up comedy is a mixture of storytelling, parodies, characters and sound effects that bring his personal experiences to life. His unique and animated comedy style has made him popular among fans of all ages.

Comedian Paula Poundstone To Return To Dayton

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0708_paula-poundstone-624x499Stand Up Comic Paula Poundstone is probably best known lately as a regular panelist on the National Public Radio comedic current-events show “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!”  Her quirky style and razor sharp often make for some of the best moments on the show and her stand up is no different.  Her last Dayton appearance was in March 2003 at the now defunct Jokers Comedy Cafe, where she displayed  her gift for crowd work.  Her very conversational style often leads to Q & A with the audience, peppered with easy laughs that come from Paula’s unscripted observations. And when she’s not playing with the crowd, you’ll probably hear about Paula’s cats, she seems to be obsessed with cats and even has a cat cam on her website.

Paula’s return to Dayton will be Fri, Oct 11th at 7:30pm at the Victoria Theatre and tickets will run $25, $30 or $35.

Password pre-sale begins Tuesday, 5/28 at 10:00 AM EDT and concudes Thursday, 5/30 at midnight EDT.

Presale Password: PICKLES

On Sale: Friday, 5/31 at 10:00 AM EDT

Tickets are available via Ticketcenterstage.com here: http://bit.ly/11eL83x
Also available at the Schuster Center Box Office or by calling (888) 228-3630.

I Was A White Knight…Once

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The Memoir of Comedian, Nathan Timmel

 

“The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child”

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

            With a creak of the mail slot and a muffled thump on the foyer floor, comedian Nathan Timmel’s memoir, I Was A White Knight…Once, unceremoniously arrived into my life. I picked up the crinkly Fed-Ex package and opened it with a sense of mild trepidation. I gingerly opened the package and inspected not only the contents, but all the cause of these feelings of apprehension, wondering from whence they came. As I explored the possible causes of this feeling, a note fluttered out from between the pages of the book that explained it all. It simply said, “Hey J.T.: Thanks for taking the time to read this – I really hope you enjoy it!”

The trepidation, I realized, came from the nagging possibility that I wouldn’t enjoy it and that it may put me in the precarious position of hurting someone’s feelings, which is something that I try to avoid at all costs. I began to turn the pages while a section of my mind dealt with these possibilities. Imperceptibly, as the words floated by, those alarming arguments that were careening through my brain quelled as I became instantly immersed and enamored with the story of Nathan Timmel’s life. As I stood there turning the pages, I felt a sense of glaring honesty emanating from the narrative. Page seven slammed the door on any niggling  suspicions that may have remained.

Page seven was the beginning of Chapter Two, which was a mere two pages long, but held such brilliant imagery and was so incredibly well written that I not only reread it several times as I stood there, but I have revisited that chapter several times. The chapter is simply titled The Shadow That Shouldn’t Be and relates the account of Nathan attending swimming lessons inWaupaca,Wisconsinwhen he was three years old. One is left with the image of Nathan standing on the edge of the pool, his sagging, soaked swimming trunks dripping onto the rough concrete, a skinny arm outstretched, pointing at a rippling shadow at the bottom of the pool.

While most people would write about such an incident in glaring detail, wringing every conceivable emotion out of it and filling in the blanks with their own perceptions and hindsight, Nathan chose to write about it in the most honest manner: from the perspective of an overwhelmed three year old. The event is painted in that impressionistically hazy hue of all of our childhood memories that are filled with a frenzy of colorfully blurred activity and dreamlike muted sounds with a singular, sharply contrasted snapshot held in time.

The memoir takes us from Nathan’s birth and childhood during the tumultuous time period of the late sixties and early seventies up to the present. Nathan’s parents, young and college educated, married seemingly out of a sense of obligation rather than for emotional reasons. The arrival of Nathan was the inescapable bond that held the marriage together…for a while. Throughout the tales of dysfunction and the ostensible denials that, at once, held the relationship together and tore it apart at the same time, there’s one truth that comes through Nathan’s writing with glaring clarity: perception. Every single one of us, on some scale or another, had a shocking point in our lives when, in dealing and communicating with others, we found that what had been our ‘normalcy’ was, in fact, viewed as insanely dysfunctional or, at best, mildly odd. With no reference point, everything comes down to one perception from whatever point one is standing.

Throughout Nathan’s memoir, the honesty follows through. He presents things as they were, admitting to the things that he has no real clear recollection of or answer to as well as owning the consequences that his own actions have wrought. This is also not a ‘woe is me’ sob story, wherein Nathan tries to foist all of his mistakes and behavior on his upbringing, thereby absolving him of his own responsibilities. This is a glimpse into a life shaped by the experiences, surrounding and subsequent emotions (or lack thereof).

One of the things that I noticed while reading Nathan’s chronicle is that, while it is written in almost chronological order, it is interspersed with interludes that are anecdotal stories of a more recent nature, most of which pertained to his comedy tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as a story about a creepy Kathy Bate’s-esque style stalker that he had encountered. If you separate these interludes with the bulk of the memoir, they can almost be seen as being penned by a different hand. No, I am not casting any allegations of plagiarism. I am merely making an observation and one which may have more to do with me projecting my own perceptions about myself onto Nathan’s life.

When you read the interludes, they are written in a very conversational manner. They are very straightforward and contain a certain amount of humor to them. The rest of the memoir that deals with Nathan’s family, childhood experiences and his early travels from home to home, you will see a more carefully crafted account of events and emotions. It is as if there is a separation, a compartmentalization of segments of Nathan’s life; parts that have been boxed up and are carefully pulled out and examined in detail, yet from a distance. There is an accuracy in the accounts of his life that can only come from an observer and not from one who is actively in the fray. You can almost see a child, clothed in his Superman jammies or wrapped protectively in his Batman cape as chaos ensued all around him, taking it all in, unadulterated, through wide shining eyes. The impressions remain until the age when understanding comes and, at that time, the feelings and images are pored over: the child’s perceptions being viewed by the analytical mind.

Nathan Timmel’s book, I Was A White Knight…Once is a memoir that, while not filled with famous names or events, tells the simple story of growing up in the midst of social and familial dysfunction and coming out the other side. It paints a poignant vignette of an era and an epoch that, while not necessarily relatable to all of our lives, still resonates with the reader. The exemplary writing and moving mood of the narrative is compelling without being bombastic or unbelievable. It is just a story of a child becoming the man who, until recently, was unable to see the forest for the trees of his own existence.

Purchase the book in paperback or Kindle edition here.

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The Power And Light Of Dow Thomas

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Dayton And The World Loses A Comedy Icon

 

Dow Thomas: Comedian & Musician 1953-2012

Sifting through scattered memories, most of which are second hand recollections that occurred before my time, I find myself overwhelmed by a life lived with a manic exuberance. I found out about comedian Dow Thomas’ passing from a friend and regular customer of Wiley’s Comedy Niteclub who called to inform me of the news. I stayed up until around 2:00am poring over the condolences that poured out from all over the country, cascading down from Dow’s Facebook page and other social media outlets. I looked through pictures that I had of Dow, read through transcripts from interviews I had done with him and reflected on conversations that we had had in the past. While many around me knew Dow longer and were closer friends than he and I were, Dow possessed the ability to make you feel that you were the only one in the room. Even during performances where there were a hundred or more people in the room, he made you feel as if you were within his inner circle, that this was an intimate gathering of friends and not just a group of people watching a performance. Even beyond his unerring talent and exuberant imagination, this was his true gift.

Born in Chillicothe and raised in the Akron/Cleveland area, Dow moved to the Dayton area in 1971 to attend Wright State as a theater major, a fitting field of study for someone who had been familiar with the stage for much of his youth. Even though Dow was not a native ofDayton, he embraced the area with the fervor that a lifelong resident should have.

“I didn’t originally come from Dayton. I just kind of adopted the city in 1971. I moved to the area to go to Wright State and I just stayed.” Dow said during one of our conversations. “I ended up living in downtown Dayton. I used to hang out at the Arcade a lot there. I’m a downtown kind of guy.”

Dow Thomas as Cléante in Molière’s Tartuffe

Dow was very active in the drama department while at Wright State, performing in several theater productions, such as Shakespear’s Romeo and Juliet and a pair of Molière’s plays; That Scoundrel Scapin and as Cléante in Tartuffe. In the latter drama, he caught the eye of a fellow student, Rob Haney, which signaled the beginning to a lifelong friendship.

As his hair grew, so did Dow’s creative yearnings. He began playing music around town, playing at venues that are but a mere memory to most Daytonians.

“I started my shows at the Upper Krust on North Main St. for ten dollars a day. I liked being up on North Main because I liked to go to shows and Gilly’s used to be up on North Main and there was also The Tropics and Suttmiller’s, which was fun for me to go see supper club type comedians like Jerry Van Dyke or Pete Barbutti and those kind of guys.”

Even though many venues and stages were opening themselves up to Dow’s music and acting, this was still not enough to contain Dow’s imaginative energies. He started sneaking his oddly skewed humor into his songs and banter with the audience.

A poster from 1972 for the Upper Krust

“I was actually doing comedy in 1972, but at that time there weren’t any comedy clubs, so I was just doing comedy along with music. I would get hired as a musician/entertainer and just add in the comedy in between songs.” Dow reflected. “I would always put on masks and stuff…I just can’t help myself from clowning around. I’d have the gig and eventually I had bands, but when I clowned around, everyone clowned around with me. What was always part of the show was me being stupid. It was what I said in between songs and me ruining songs, like singing like a dog and getting a ‘bark along’ going.”

In those days, you may have seen Dow tooling around town in his hearse, decked out like a Bohemian undertaker, black clad and sporting his ubiquitous top hat, running from gig to gig. He played with Astrid Socrates for seven years (creatively billed as Astrid & Dow) as well as drummer Doug Buchanan Tim McKenzie on lead guitar during yet another incarnation of his ingenuity. He was a featured act at The Trolley Stop, Clancy’s, the Iron Boar and Bogey’s.

Comics don’t need to spend actual time together to feel like brethren or family.  We are constantly accruing that common experience that instantly bonds us all separately and continually.  But, few of us are as pure, kind, original, and superbly funny as Uncle Dow.  I feel forever indebted to him for making it possible for me to ever start and I know that anyone who knew him feels like they, too are some of the luckiest people alive.  Uncle Dow made people laugh, but even more so he made them feel alive and always made them smile. ~Ryan Singer

“I’ll never forget the day Dow Thomas and my path crossed. I was part owner of a night club called Bogey’s onWatervliet Ave. in Dayton when Dow and Jeffro stopped in after buying guitar strings at Ace Music.” Mike Adams reminisced recently. “Things weren’t going very well at the bar and we couldn’t afford a barmaid or a cook so I was working. Dow Thomas ordered two drinks and asked for a menu and ordered a sandwich. Upon serving him he asked who owned the place and I confessed. He asked how things were going and I said not to well. He said he could tell. He asked if I had ever heard of Dow Thomas and I said yes but had never seen him and he told me I was talking to him. He offered to do a show one night a week for free as long as I didn’t interfere with him trying new material. I lost a lot of money owning that bar but memories like this makes the money seem irrelevant.”

Dow also frequently played in a bar onPatterson Road called the Iron Boar and becoming steadfast friends with the owners, Dan and Jodi Lafferty.

“We used to do a Gong Show at the Iron Boar and it was fun because we’d have some guy come up and go, ‘I’m going to do my imitation of a lobster’ and we’d go, ‘Good!’  So he’d put claws on and hop around like a freak…it was just so stupid!” Dow began chuckling to himself on the phone before going on. “I used to do a thing called Punt The Fish and I’d yell out, ‘It’s time to…’ the audience would scream, ‘Punt the Fish!’ I had this rubber fish and audience members would come up and kick this fish and we’d measure it off with toilet paper and the one who kicked it the farthest won. One night I had this woman up on stage and she kicked the fish and it went into the propeller of the ceiling fan and came back and smacked me in the face. Everybody was just laughing and I stood up and screamed, ‘Disqualified!’ It was all just so stupid, but you’ll never be able to have a moment like that ever again.”

In ’91 when I took over Jokers Comedy Café, Dow was running the open mic night.  I’d never heard of Dow and looking at this man in a black trench coat and top hat, I have to admit my first impression was not great-   he’s gonna be dark and sarcastic and egotistical, I thought.  I could not have been more wrong!  Dow loved being on stage and his joy radiated through the crowd. He would have an audience pounding their table to Power & Light, and tossing paper plates across the room as he sang Sail Cats. ~Lisa Grigsby

The comedy began usurping the music and Dan Lafferty began booking ventriloquists, jugglers and other oddball acts to fill out the shows.

“I used to have people like Jay Haverstick, who owned Jay’s Seafood, he would come and see my shows. So would Mike Peters. They would be out late at night and they would just say, ‘Hey! Let’s go and see what crazy Dow is doing!’” Dow said during another conversation. He went on, describing another huge change that was bout to occur in his life. “But there wasn’t a comedy club, so I left forL.A.I gave them (the Lafferty’s) a one year’s notice (laughing) and said, ‘In a year, I’m going toL.A.’ and that’s when we turned it into a comedy club.”

Eventually, the Lafferty’s decided to change not only the whole format of the club to comedy, but the name itself. In an unexplainable instance where someone could legitimately name a comedy club Lafferty’s, Dan decided to use his nickname instead, dubbing the newly restructured club Wiley’s.

Dow, true to his word, eventually left forLa-LaLand, seeking his fame and fortune, both of which proved to be elusive in the land of silicone and sunshine. He found that the venues that were available to him were less than conducive to his creative talents. At one point, he found himself doing sets between bouts at a boxing match and, towards his triumphant return toDayton, he was unceremoniously replaced with disco music at a Newport Beachclub. Yet the comedy scene was heating up nationally and Dow was riding the cusp of this chaotic wave. The shows were not the structured tight sets that we witness now in the clubs, but were given to more improvisational melees and surprise guests.

“There were these guys like Rich Purpura, who was a comedy/magician, and Tim Walko, a guitarist, and they were both fromChicago. We’d do a show, just packing the place, but at the end, we’d just get up there and jam and kept the show going and clown around with each other.” Dow said. “By then, we were just trying to make each other laugh, and that’s what the audience liked. It was kind of like. It was kind of like having the Rat Pack or something. It was that kind of feel, where everybody’s in the groove. Back then I could have Emo Philips come in and do twenty minutes and then I’d get a chance to go to the bathroom. Then maybe Judy Tenuta would come in and do twenty to thirty minutes and then I’d get a chance to go to the bathroom. For me, I thought it should go on all night.”

Rob Haney

Another person that benefitted from the burgeoning comedy scene was Rob Haney, a newly touring comic and future owner of Wiley’s Comedy Niteclub.

“Rob Haney came up to me one time and said, ‘Can I get up and do some time? I just got back from The Comedy Store.’ He had just done some showcasing there…which surprised me because Rob was a bouncer in a bar I used to work at.” Dow recalled that, “When I first met him, he was a doorman at a place called The Bar inWest Carrollton. It was a rough little joint that ended up being Omar’s for a while. It was an old basement bar and the family that owned it was pretty rugged. I actually had guns pulled on me in that bar. I’ve seen him mace guys and throw guys out…he’s a pretty tough guy. He had like shoulder length hair at the time and pretty well built, so it was a different Rob Haney that came up to me with short hair and asked if he could do like twenty minutes and I said, ‘Sure!’ I let him up at the Trolley Stop and I had a gig there like six nights a week…it was crazy.”

Another iconic staple of the Miami Valley that Dow had a huge role in was with his friend Dr. Creep (Barry Hobart) and Shock Theater. The inception of Shock Theater was supposed to be actually scary, as an accompaniment to the B-rated horror flicks that they screened, but the campy ineptness and irrepressible humor of Dr. Creep and the people that worked on the show quickly made the show a campy carnival for all of those late night viewers.

“I ended up getting on just about every television show in Dayton, but I got with Dr. Creep in the late seventies when it was called Saturday Night Dead because they had him on after Saturday Night Live, so it was kind of a neat spot.” Dow went on to say, “So I wrote The Ballad of Dr. Creep and went on there with my girlfriend at the time, Astrid Socrates and also with a bunch of my friends and we did skits.”

Barry Hobart (Dr. Creep) And Dow

“You know, what’s funny about that whole thing is that they became the number one, locally produced television show while I was writing for them. They would go, ‘Okay, we’re showing Dracula: Prince of Darkness’ and we made up the Bat Photo Studio and all of the prints would come out really dark, and customer’s would comment, ‘Wow! These prints are really dark!’ and I’d go, ‘Well, I am Dracula: Prints of Darkness! Sometimes I accidently cut their heads off!’ and I’d hold up a severed head. It was just stupid stuff like that.” With a tinge of regret, Dow added, “Of course, Joe Smith said, ‘No, you can’t do this and you can’t do that.’ He was an integral part of the studio there, so I got censored quite a bit and got into a little bit of trouble. I remember John Riggi and I getting yelled at because we changed the weather map one time. We got up there and started putting a bunch of tornados around Xenia…they were just little magnetized things back in those days. We were hippies in a studio that had rules.”

Dow played some forty different clubs in the MiamiValley the years that he was here and developed a huge fan base locally as well as in other cities that he performed in. In 1997, he moved to Florida with his wife Kay and they took up residence at some of the local clubs near their new home. Even after his departure, Dow was voted Dayton’s Best Comedian for two year’s running. He would still make frequent sojourns to Ohio, usually performing at Wiley’s one to two times a year, creating comedic chaos with his skewed humor and especially with his song Sailcats, in which he would cajole the audience into throwing paper plates in lieu of flattened kittens as the song implied. The staff would usually find the last paper plate stuck in the rafter shortly before Dow’s next scheduled appearance.

Dow Thomas At Dirty Little Secret Sanitarium Show

I contacted Dow in February of 2011 to ask if he would perform at my upcoming Dirty Little Secret Sanitarium show in May. He was eager to do the show because of the variety aspect of the event, but was reluctant in some ways, feeling that it would be a conflict of interests with his Wiley’s appearances. Rob Haney assured him that there would be no conflict and he agreed to do the show. That evening became an impromptu reunion of sorts in honor of Dr. Creep as not only had Dow worked closely with him, but so had some of the other performers slated for that evening. Thomas Nealeigh from FreakShow Deluxe had worked with Dr. Creep as had A. Ghastlee Ghoul. Our emcee for the evening was Dr. Creep’s protégé  Baron Von Pork Shop and some of the members of Team Void had recorded music for Shock Theater’s DVD’s. Dow had a blast at the show and had garnered yet a few more fans for his cult of comedy.

I contacted him again this past December to see if he wanted to be part of the Dirty Little Secrets Sick Of Santa Show and he readily agreed. We spent the rest of the conversation talking about old horror movies and other trivialities. On the night of the show, December 28th, 2011, his wife Kay showed up at the club saying that Dow was really sick and would be unable to perform. Seeing the look on her face and knowing Dow’s penchant for performing, I knew then that it was ore serious than she was letting on. The next evening, Dow arrived at Wiley’s to do his Thursday night set and we could all tell that something was wrong. The current owner, Rob Haney, and other staff and friends finally convinced Dow he needed to seek medical attention. He was admitted toMiamiValleyHospital and, two days later was released. He performed the New Year’s Eve show as well as the shows the following week.

His last show on January 7th, 2012 was astounding. Offstage, he seemed somewhat fragile, but as soon as he was on stage, that glimmer came into his eyes and the casual smirk shown across his face. He performed Sailcats and wheedled the audience into throwing the paper plates once again, daring any one of them to land one of them on his top hat. It was a picture perfect performance where someone actually landed a paper plate onto his top hat. The show ended with a standing ovation for our Uncle Dow, with audience members shouting out their approval and appreciation for Dow’s show.

After the show, Dow was surrounded by family and friends, well wishers and fans. It was the way of Dow: that feeling that you just needed to be near him and everything would be alright. You would be safely ensconced in his world.

Shortly after returning to Akron, Dow was hospitalized. He died January 18th, 2012. The outpouring of condolences and memories was immediate and Dow’s Facebook page became a makeshift memorial for a legion of stunned fans and friends to share their grief as well as their memories.

I think now of the boarded up Upper Crust, the warped wooden floors of the Trolley Stop, the comfortably worn carpet of the Wiley’s stage and I can hear the clank of glasses against the cascading laughter and see Dow with a mischievous gleam in his eyes as he dons a mask and unleashes a dialogue of absurdity in the voice of Lon Chaney. I can see him on stage doing what he did best: fashioning a world without limits, pushing the envelope until it bent and combining chords to nonsensical songs that bring laughter to all who are compelled to bang their glasses on the table and sing along. I see him smile down from the stage wearing a paper plate atop his felted hat, an improvised halo for our imaginative jester.

Read my previous article from 12/2010 – “Dow-Town Dayton”

The Church of Augiology

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Auggie Smith and the Wayward Masses

To the uninitiated, (or “non-believers” as they are commonly called by The Auggites) Auggie Smith is the founder and Grand Pubah for Life of what has come to be known as The First Church of Augiology. While not technically a religion, at least not in the fully tax exempt definition narrowly portrayed in the IRS’s Draconian codes, the movement of Augism is gaining momentum in this country, as well as other, more backwards countries who really don’t know any better. With the recent release of his new DVD and CD, Cult Following, more of the weary and downtrodden will quickly become zealous converts.

Smith was born. This we know to be true. Everything after that is rather suspect and apocryphal. Being a rather shy individual throughout his youth, Auggie attained the rank of presidency of the speech team and cleaned the bathrooms at his school, making his vows of chastity almost unavoidable.

“You can imagine how the girls just flocked to that – president of the speech team!” Auggie says in Duderonomy 4:16. “’Wow, look at that!’ All girls care about at that age is a guy who can conjugate a verb.”

He remained chaste until the age of eighteen, succumbing to the lure of the flesh and Auggie found it to be good. He began his journey into the world, preaching his message for the masses, never gaining the attention he so richly deserved. After many disheartening years, Auggie considered renouncing his calling and wandering the earth like Al Gore, broken and dispirited. As destiny would have it, he met two like minded individuals; Apostle Bob and Saint Tom. They gave Auggie the inspiration and hope to preach his sermons on their quaint morning show. Thus the cult of Auggie was born.

After years of spreading the gospel on XM and Sirius satellite radio, after performing miracles at countless comedy clubs throughout the nation by turning dollars into wine and even after he died one night on stage in Butztown, Pennsylvania, only to rise three days later in a defiled motel room, hung over, Auggie is ready to be your personal pathfinder. He has sacrificed his life to be your personal sherpa, guiding you through the pitfalls and the pain, making you forget, at least for an hour or so, that the world is a festering cesspool of rampant self-interest.

This messianic messenger of mirth is bringing his traveling revival show to a stage somewhere near you, to spread the one true gospel. What should one expect when entering Auggie’s church? The faithful will be blessed with a bellicose dose of reality, delivered in a breathless, rapid-fire rant, shining a stark light on the futile efforts of man. From the current political scene to Barbie being raw dogged by G.I. Joe as he has a ‘Nam flashback, nothing is sacred in this sanctuary. The pervasive daily fears we all surrender to will be lifted to reveal the true evildoers behind senior citizen NASCAR drivers, voracious vending machines and drunken pink bunnies.

“Really brother, wouldn’t it just be easier to stay home and not have to interact with any live people?” Aug asks. “I SAY NO! The fear ends now. The only way to win is to not be afraid, or to paraphrase a Stallone classic, ‘fear is the disease…Aug is the cure!'”

Why should you be a follower of Auggie Smith? Why should you become part of the Cult Following? Humbly witness all that Auggie has sacrificed for us: his wasted teenage years scrubbing bathroom stalls while we were partying and getting laid. His ongoing pursuit to ingest every street corner pharmaceutical product, keeping them out of our reach so that we won’t cause harm unto ourselves as well as his ever vigilante watch over all the bars and pubs across this great land of ours, safeguarding them until they are safely closed. These things he does for us…selflessly! He truly cares about our well being and tries to convey this clearly during his sermons. He forces you to see the inequities in the lives we witness as well as the ones we live. His inescapable diatribes hammer home the absurdities we all see in everyday life, yet are afraid to comment on. He speaks while we are silent. Well, to tell the truth, he speaks while we’re talking as well, but nobody’s perfect.

Just reflect for a moment on this truism that he has shared with us;

“Your bunny may be your relationship or your job, but at one time, you tried to give your bunny a bear hug and things got out of hand.”

How can one argue with this incontrovertible truth? How?

Watch the DVD. Listen to the CD. Catch him on The Bob and Tom Show, or better yet, witness the man in person when he comes to town. If you’re not completely satisfied…well, you’ll still be out the money for the DVD, CD and the tickets, but hey, doesn’t it just make you feel warm inside knowing you helped a potentially sober comedian attain a higher level of consciousness via many, many Jägerbombs?

Services for the Church of Aug will be held at Wiley’s Comedy Niteclub on Thursday August 25th at 8:00pm (for a $5 tithe), Friday August 26th at 9:00pm (with a mandatory $10 donation). Saturday August 20th brings us to the conclusion of Auggie’s missionary work here in Dayton with a full blown comedy revival, featuring the comedy sermonizing of Deacon Tom Griswold from the Church of Latter Day Bob and Toms. Services for this revival will begin at 8:00pm with a secondary service held 10:30pm for all of those incorrigible heathens. For these special Saturday Night Sermons,  a collection of $20 is required. To make reservations, call (937) 224-JOKE. For more information, go to the Wiley’s website at http://www.wileyscomedyclub.com/ or add them as a friend on Facebook at Wiley’s Comedy Niteclub.

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An Interview In Five Easy Pieces

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Dave Dugan: Corporate Comic, Stand-Up Comedian And Voice Over Talent

When you see Dave Dugan perform, you may be reminded of some of those well meaning television dads who mete out their sage wisdom in a fumblingly laconic manner, usually with horrific results. His stand up comedy hinges on eloquent misdirection and an ironic demeanor that is somewhat incongruous with the situations he finds himself in. Having done hundreds upon hundreds of voice over gigs, from Midas Mufflers to Microsoft, it’s a good bet that you have heard of Dave Dugan before and just don’t know it. Having seen him perform several times, I wanted to talk with him in more depth about his voice over talents…

J.T.: Since you do so much voice over work, do you have a ritual to prepare for the particular mood or emotion you need to convey?
Dave: Sure, if they want a manly, gritty read, I chop some kindlin’ and gargle some Jack Daniels. If they want me to be all sensitive, I crank up the Tori Amos and shave with a Daisy Razor.

J.T.: Do you ever have to perform a series of intentional “outtakes” just to get some of the funny stuff out of your head so you can do a serious take?
Dave: Recently, I voiced fun facts about California for anyone renting a car in the state to hear on their navigation system. The script was of record length …took 8 days to record! Outtakes were plentiful just to keep from going stir crazy.

J.T.: What is probably the most difficult voice over that you have had to so?
Dave: I auditioned for roles in an Italian animated series that was sold to an American (broadcaster) and therefore needing English speaking voices to translate the original lines. I ended up getting the roles of two characters. One voice was a very screechy, evil bird character and for the audition I went way out of my voice range. Then when it came time to do the actual read for the show, the character had tons of lines. I strained myself big time. Pretty sure I may have collapsed a lung…

J.T.: With your comedy, your approach is so deadpan…do some audiences have difficulty in picking up on the subtleties of your act?
Dave: Sometimes a few audience members just don’t get it… and they are always asked to leave. No, not really…I’m just kidding. I usually try and play off their not following me with a series of random audience involvement comments. After doing standup comedy this long, I know I may have to make adjustments from time to time to please all audiences.

J.T.: What is your ultimate Spinal Tap moment?
Dave: A booker once scheduled me to headline ‘ a club’ in Napa Valley, California. I had visions of smart, jaded audiences sipping fine wine and appreciating my most obscure comments. Turned out to be a biker bar. Before the show was over a biker chick came up on stage and tried to wrestle me to the ground.
To save face, I made cracks about the absurdity of it all, which only seemed to make her angrier. Fortunately, her 300 pound boyfriend found that part of the show amusing and I was allowed to settle up and leave without being maimed or beheaded.

You can check out Dave Dugan live at Wiley’s Comedy Niteclub at 101 Pine St. on Thursday June 9th at 8:00pm, Friday June 10th at 9:00pm and June 11th at 8:00pm and 10:30pm. Tickets range from $5 to $12, but for our DaytonMostMetro.com readers, you can mention you read this article when you make your reservations and receive a two for one admission price.

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The Billy With The Golden Willy

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An Interview (Of Sorts) With Movie Star, Billy Willy

Billy Willy's "Professional" Headshot

The whole day began oddly. I received a phone call at around 3:00am and a quiet, muffled voice asked if I would like to meet with and interview a world famous comedian/actor/musician/bon vivant. After wiping the sleep from my eyes, I managed to mumble, “Sure.” After a few moments, another voice was transmitted through the phone which introduced itself as Billy Willy. In retrospect, I have to admit that the first voice sounded exactly like the second voice…just without a hand covering it’s mouth. Anyway, Billy Willy said that he loved my work and he was an avid reader of Rolling Stone Magazine. I was unsure of what the connection between myself and Rolling Stone was, but I was far too tired to care. We quickly set up an interview for the next day at Carmen’s on Second St. After hanging up, I rolled over and went back to sleep, quickly forgetting the conversation until I woke up the next morning and looked through my notes.

I arrived at Carmen’s several minutes before the appointed interview time and, after purchasing my lunch and walking into the back dining room, I found myself in the Twilight Zone. Well, the Twilight Zone if it had been written by William S. Burroughs and directed by David Lynch while they were both flying high on massive doses of mescaline. There, towards the back of the room, sat a lone figure, replete in a monstrously huge ten gallon Stetson, a powder blue sequined Western shirt, pegged slacks and cowboy boots…with spurs that jingled and caught the light every time the lone figure fidgeted. Assuming that the figure had to be the World Famous Comedian/Actor/Musician/Bon Vivant Billy Willy, I strode up and introduced myself…the first of many mistakes I would make within the next hour. The second would be asking him any questions, which was the next mistake that I made…

J.T.: How are you today? I’m J.T.
Billy: This doesn’t look like a French Restaurant.

J.T.: Well, I don’t think that it is…
Billy: Oh. Isn’t L’Auberge the best restaurant in town?

J.T.: Yes, but…
Billy: Well, this is a croissant, which is French, so this must be L’Auberge. I would have thought that they would have had a better wine list though…

J.T.: Well, this is…
Billy: Where’s Annie?

J.T.: Who?
Billy: Annie Leibovitz.

J.T.: Annie Leibovitz from Rolling Stone?
Billy: Yes. I thought you guys shot all your celebrity interviews.

J.T.: I don’t…this isn’t…I write for DaytonMostMetro.com…
Billy: I’m not familiar with that column. This isn’t the first time I was in Rolling Stone you know…

J.T.: Really?
Billy: Well, it wasn’t a cover story like this…

J.T.: This isn’t…
Billy: It wasn’t even really a feature article. It was more like an ad I placed to sell a guitar actually. It’s just as well that she wasn’t here. Now I don’t feel so bad about all the money I spent for professional headshots. (Hands me an envelope full of blurry Polaroid pictures)

J.T. : The only bio I could find of you, which was an old MySpace account, said that you were living in California, but that you were moving back to West Virginia. Why is that?
Billy: Well, my movie The Billy With The Dragon Willy in 3D tanked, so I’m back on the road. I don’t understand why it tanked because it was so well received on the festival circuit.

J.T.: Do you mean like at Sundance or the Tribeca Film Festival?
Billy: No. Like Clapper Gap, California’s Yam Festival and Possum Grape, Arkansas’ Jumping Toad Festival. I’m not sure where else it was shown. I think that it was actually a direct to YouTube release. Maybe the film will have a life. I thought that this film would be my big breakthrough.

J.T.: Well, speaking of your movies, it said in your bio that Billy With The Dragon Willy is kind of a sequel to your music CD Crouching Billy, Hidden Willy. I tried to locate a copy, but oddly enough, it was only released in the  Shanxi Province of China.
Billy: Yes, that was my Chinese import. My single from that ranked 386 with a bullet on the Mandarin Hot 400.

J.T: Well, The Billy With The Dragon Willy isn’t your first brush with filmmaking, was it?
Billy: No. I read for the lead role in Brokeback Mountain, but Heath Ledger got it…and look what happened to him! I ended up as an extra and was also a technical adviser for the film. You know that thing where he spit in his hand? That was my idea.

J.T.: Being in the industry in California, you must have been able to meet up and network with a lot of celebrities.
Billy: I’ve met lots of people and met lots of celebrities, but now I’m heading back, across the country on my new tour which I’m going to be launching at the Dayton Funnybone…I’m not sure why I would have crossed half the country to start a national tour, but who knows what these booking agents are thinking. I’m in Dayton now and happy to be here.

J.T.: Well, has your celebrity connections helped you out career-wise?
Billy: Well, I was recently in New York City to try out for the new Folger’s Coffee jingle contest

J.T.: Well, you must have some interesting stories about your travels. Did you make any stop offs on your way to Dayton?
Billy: I did stop off in Las Vegas and did a show there.

J.T.: I thought that Dayton was the first stop on your national tour.
Billy: Well, it was a private party. It was a children’s birthday party.

J.T.: Oh…
Billy: I did get to see some of my friends while I was there though. I know Siegfried and Roy…well, Roy. It turns out that Roy loves traditional mountain music, but Siegfried likes trance. I met them years ago when I was playing a hot Vegas club called The Rusty Trombone.

J.T.: Well, you grew up in this part of the country didn’t you?
Billy: Yes. I grew up in a Pizza Hut in Friendly West Virginia. When my parents moved there, a vacant Pizza Hut was all they could afford because they were doing God’s work. It’s not a bad thing. Like I tell people, we had a big kitchen, lots of parking and a huge dining room. I’m looking forward to moving back to Friendly, West Virginia with my son Woody. The only thing that I am not looking forward to are the UFOs.

J.T.: UFOs?
Billy: Yeah, we’re the Mountain State and that makes us easy targets for UFO abduction.

J.T.: How so?
Billy: Well, we are a little closer to the sky then you all are. I’ve never been abducted myself, which I don’t take personally because, being famous, if the aliens want to know anything about me, they can just Google me. I have had friends that have been abducted and sometimes they’re returned if they are not good enough for the aliens, and that’s sad. They become sad sacks and they feel sort of rejected.

At that point, I excused myself to go to the bathroom and, in the back of my mind, waited for Ashton Kucher to leap out so all of this would make sense. I scooted past the door to the men’s room, stepping up my pace as I reached the sweet relief of the back door that led to the alleyway. If you want to witness for yourself why Billy Willy is billed as “West Virginia’s least favorite country and Western musician, go to the Funnybone on May 12th at 7:30pm. It will only cost you $10 to see one of the most singularly bizarre acts this side of Friendly, West Virginia. Joining Billy on stage will be Michelle Metzner and Lady Jae  Je. You may also be able to pick up one of Billy’s first recordings,  Je m’appelle Billy Willy. Call (937) 429-5233 or go online at www.daytonfunnybone.com to make reservations.

Goes To The Edge…And Folds It Neatly (with Tim Bedore)

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Tim Bedore: Standing Up Against The Animal Conspiracy

Comedian Tim Bedore, who hails from Minnesota is a philosopher, a writer, a comedian; He is a man who once had the urge to kiss a wombat full on the lips. He has made numerous television appearances and his Vague But True weekly series can be heard on NPR’s Marketplace weekly program. The last time I spoke to Bedore, it was to gain his wisdom pertaining to his area of expertise: the animal conspiracy theory.

Bedore’s theory is rather alarming in its utter simplicity: Animals hate us and want us dead so that they may rule the Earth and inherent all of the fine Hostess products that will be left in our wake. I decided that the animal conspiracy theory was a great jumping off point for our most recent conversation, so that is where I began…

J.T.: Are we all still in imminent danger from the animals?

Tim: The animal conspiracy thing still looms large, and let me tell you why: Because I love my country. I want Americato continue to be at the top of the economic food chain as well as the literal food chain, so I constantly bear witness and am on the case at all times. At Wiley’s, I’m going to do the animal conspiracy slideshow, of course, and there is a lot of new stuff. I’ve got some amazing video of some elk that have taken over a town to the point where if you want to golf, you pretty much have to golf around the elk and play out of the divots that they make with their horns. They are literally coming into town and chasing after hunters before the hunters get out into the woods to hunt them. I’ve got video of it that’s just incredible.

J.T.: Do you think that the animals are acting independently or might they be lobbied by certain special interest groups and instructed to go after specific targets?

Tim: Boy, that’s an ugly thought! Are you saying that this might be political? Man! So even this is a partisan thing! Anything is possible. Things have changed so much that I expect that, one day, you will see wolves and elk working together to drive keepers and tourists out ofYellowstone. Natural enemies joined together.

J.T.: Are the squirrels still the central part of the conspiracy?

Tim: Oh yes! Squirrels are literally the smartest animal on the planet, other than humans. I mean, they’re rats, but we allow them to live in our cities and we allow them in our yards and people think they’re cute….it’s that damn fuzzy tail. Unbelievable when you think about it. It’s just that fuzzy tail and – bang! – they’re not a rat anymore.

J.T.: Well, since the last time I spoke with you, I started homeschooling my eleven year old son. It makes you yearn for the days when you could hand a kid a sack and send him to a coal mine to earn his keep. I didn’t think teachers made enough money before…

Tim: …and now you’re certain of it. Yeah, that’s a big commitment.

J.T.: Yep. But, I think the problem with the schools now is that all they are concerned about is the State testing and not about cognitive reasoning or problem solving.

Tim: No they don’t.

J.T.: But I think it is becoming apparent because kids are coming out of school and unable to do the jobs because all they know is the answer to question 1-A.

Tim: We had a teacher in college that taught us to think like critical thinkers by saying, “Men do not have to wash their hands after they use a urinal in a public restroom…

J.T.:…but before…

Tim: Right! Wash your hands before! His point was that the penis is the cleanest part of a guy’s body. If you take a ten minute shower, nine minutes is spent cleaning the penis. You get that very, very clean. It’s the hands that are filthy when you think about it. You ride busses with your hands. You touch coins and pick your nose…clean your hands first so you won’t get your penis dirty because it is already clean and, unless you have a spastic fit at the urinal, you don’t have to soap up afterwards. Now, that’s a very interesting way to think, but you can’t make a living with this information, really. I tried. You hang out in bathrooms and try to point this out and…well, the tips were very low.

J.T.: Yeah…well, I don’t know if I would use that phrasing…

Tim: No! “Hey ‘big’ fella! Can I talk to you a second?”

J.T.: So what do you want people to know about you?

Tim: You know what you can tell people? You can tell them that I do not lie on stage. Most comics lie. Most comics make stuff up and I only talk about truthfully honest things because I think that there are too many lies in the world and I really believe that I am going to be the force for truth and honesty. You hear lies all the time and we’ve become just too used to hearing them. How many times have you flown and the pilot gets on the intercom after pulling in three hours late and says, “We apologize for any inconvenience and we really hope to serve you better in the future,” which is just a lie. They know they are not going to serve you better in the future: It’s the nature of their business. If they were honest, they would say, “Yeah, we’re sorry about the inconvenience and all, but hey! This airline sucks, but so does walking fromMinneapolistoDetroitwith a golf bag, so…see you next time!” Like Home Depot…”You can do it, we can help!” That’s a lie. It should be, “You can do it, we can help…but it will look like hell and you’ll probably kill yourself.” That’s the honest way to say it. That’s the truth.

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Conservatively Comedic

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Mark Klein Is Conservative On Everything But The Funny

Mark Klein - Conservative Comedian

While Mark Klein’s early career careened around the edges of the blue circuit, playing in seedy clubs and even strip joints. Over time, his act evolved and matured as he himself did. His performance reflects who he has become rather than a persona he cultivated over the years on stage. While being touted as a conservative comedian is a rarity, finding someone that is true to themselves on and off the stage is even more extraordinary.

Klein’s career has taken him from the comedy club circuits, to the cruise lines and into the corporate boardrooms, and his blend of political and observational humor has managed to win over audiences, fans and naysayers alike. I was able to speak with him as he was wending his way across the country and, as we spoke, a clearer picture of the man and his comedy shone through.

J.T.: Okay, so you are billed as the most conservative comedian…
Mark: Well, not the most conservative comedian, but I am the only Jewish, Republican, conservative comedian from Louisville, Kentucky in the world. There is only one and I am it. My political viewpoint on stage is definitely conservative and it has a definite point and edge to it. My career is comedy club work, cruise ship work and corporate speaking and I’ve kind of blended all of those into a show that says exactly what I want it to say and it’s become a real passion to get both the message out there and the comedy.

J.T.: Well, a lot of people are afraid to do that. A lot of people are afraid to use the platform that they have.
Mark: I can understand that. The minute you take a political viewpoint, you’re alienating half the people that are listening to you. My idea of a perfect show is when I see someone in the audience that doesn’t agree with me, and they’re laughing. To me, that’s just the greatest show you can have.

J.T.: Yeah, especially within the last decade or so, everyone has become so encamped and entrenched and polarized, people don’t feel they can laugh at truths about themselves even.
Mark: Right, and that is exactly what comedy is not about. Comedy, to me, is about getting people to look at the world and themselves and laugh at it as well as laugh with it. The whole goal of comedy is to find the points that we have in common and how we laugh at the same things together and then you get to use that to examine who you are and what you believe and examine the world around you. It’s a joyous way to make a living because you get to be the vehicle for the audience to be able to do that, so it’s just a great way to make a living.

Well, this doesn’t look conservative at all! No sir, it surely does not!

J.T.: Do you think that having yourself billed as the most conservative comedian kind of limits your audience? Would someone who sees themselves as a liberal enjoy your show just as much?
Mark: Of course, of course. There’s a good part of the show that has nothing to do with being liberal or conservative. A tremendous part of the show is just my world view described in a funny way, so it doesn’t matter who you vote for or what you believe or where you are from, you are going to find these things funny. Even when you disagree with the viewpoint, there are jokes there that are funny. A well written political joke for me is one that makes people on both sides of the aisle laugh and even people that disagree with it will find the humor in it and be able to laugh at it and, in that sense, I try not to use my humor to polarize people, but to unify them.

J.T.: Yeah, and a lot of people don’t do that. People take the opposite tack and ostracize a group.
Mark: There’s nothing insulting or bashing; there’s no ugliness to the show that I do.

J.T.: Well, why do you think that there are so few conservative comedians?
Mark: Well, entertainment, by it’s very nature seems to have more of a liberal following, in both the performers and those that patronize live entertainment and so most comedians are afraid of being ostracized from the comedic community for not being politically correct and, let’s face it, as an entertainer, you depend on the approval of your audience. As a professional entertainer, to get work, you depend on the approval of your peers and the people that book your work and so a lot of these guys are afraid of not having that approval. Well, I’m not afraid of that. I know who I am and what I believe and I know I can make it funny. You have to be true to yourself and my act is very true to who I am and what I believe and if it costs me work, so be it. To not be able to be that person on stage, that would absolutely suck the joy out of what I do for me. It’s important for em to stay true to myself politically onstage.

Mark Klein is set to take the stage at Wiley’s Comedy Niteclub (101 Pine St.) on Thursday, January 20th at 8:00 pm ($5 admission), Friday, January 21st at 9:00pm ($10 admission) and Saturday, January 22nd at 8:00 pm and 10:30 pm ($12 admission). Opening up for Mark Klein will be joined by the always likeable and incredibly funny Dave Zage. To make reservations, just call (937) 224-JOKE and for more information, go online to wileyscomedyclub.com. You can also find them on Facebook at Wiley’s Comedy Niteclub.

Dow-Town Dayton

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Dow Thomas And The Cult Of Comedy

Part horror show hippy, part amusing musician, part imaginative genius. Dow Thomas is truly one of the Dayton originals, having performed comedy locally before there was even a venue dedicated to the genre. He has stepped so far outside of the box, finding himself still in the forefront of comedic inspiration, twisting the mundane into a bizarrely fascinating funhouse that moves so quickly, it’s hard for the average person to keep up. From playing Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love on the banjo to a stirring rendition of Sailcats, which prompts a Rocky Horror-esque melee of paper plate flinging, Dow Thomas is one of the most original and entertaining comedians around.

I was recently able to talk to Dow from his Florida home as he readied himself for his trek North to Dayton. I asked him to describe his unique brand of humor…because I sure as hell couldn’t.

“What I do is I write stupid songs…a lot of stupid songs…and that makes stupid routines that you’re not going to hear them from anybody else because they’re mine.” Dow went on to describe his dedication to creeping his material fresh, “If you write new routines and jokes all the time, they are going to be thirty seconds at the most. You can’t get up there and be Bill Cosby anymore. People have short attention spans, so what I do is write a strings of songs or jokes.”

In the late seventies, Dow showed up on a local television show that aired at various times on Channel 22 which was then titled Saturday Night Dead, a play on words to contrast the show’s spot directly following Saturday Night Live. It featured B-rated horror films and boasted one of the most good-humored hosts by the name of Barry Hobart who played the part of Dr. Creep. Dow, along with his girlfriend at the time, Astrid Socrates, played an original song titled The Ballad of Dr. Creep, which signaled one of the funniest collaborations, along with a host of other comedians, a puppeteer, John Riggi (who went on to write for 30 Rock) and a flamingly gay Frankenstein. Dow has never given up his penchant for the peculiar, having appeared in several movies, most within the genre of the B-rated horror flick. Dow spoke briefly about his most recent foray into film.

“It’s called The Psycho Dish. The director actually has gotten me in a part of another film he’s getting the rights to which is a Civil War movie. They want me to play a legless, one armed guy in a wheelchair. It’s called Bats Out Of Hell. I’ve got a couple of irons in the fire with the acting thing, but they’re all going to be independent films, and you never know where that’s going to go.” In relating what type of roles he has played in the past, a common theme begins to emerge. “I played the Devil in a movie and I played…it’s always like I’m playing some grave robber or something like that. People actually call me up and say, ‘Somebody said that you be great at playing the creepy old man downstairs.’ For me, it just keeps your chops up when you try to do everything.”

Our conversation meandered on for over an hour. Dow related stories about the roots of Dayton’s comedy scene which, at that time, was virtually nonexistent, at least from our modern perspective.

“I didn’t originally come from Dayton. I just kind of adopted the city in 1971. I moved to the area to go to Wright State and I just stayed and I ended up living in downtown Dayton. I started my shows at the Upper Krust on North Main Street for ten dollars a day.” Dow went on reminiscing, saying, “I liked being up on North Main because I liked to go to shows and Gilly’s used to be up on North Main. There was also The Tropics and Suttmiller’s, which was fun for me to go see supper club type comedians like Jerry Van Dyke or Pete Barbutti and those kind of guys.”

In the seventies, comedy was not the mainstream draw that it would soon become in the eighties, so Dow would camouflage his true comedic intentions under the cover of his music. He would get hired in as a musician and then add in little comedy bits here and there until they became his entire set. Back in those days, a set might be five hours, not the tight twenty or the solid hour that has become an industry standard. Dow found himself at many local bars, like The Bar, Clancy’s and the Iron Boar, which was to become legendary Wiley’s Comedy Niteclub.

“We used to do a Gong Show at the Iron Boar and it was fun because we’d have some guy come up and go, ‘I’m going to do my imitation of a lobster’ and we’d go, ‘Good!’ So he’d put claws on and hop around like a freak…it was just so stupid! I used to do a thing called Punt The Fish and I’d yell out, ‘It’s time to…’ the audience would scream, ‘Punt the Fish!’ I had this rubber fish and audience members would come up and kick this fish and we’d measure it off with toilet paper and the one who kicked it the farthest won.” Dow went on to tell about, “One night, I had this woman up on stage and she kicked the fish and it went into the propeller of the ceiling fan and came back and smacked me in the face. Everybody was just laughing and I stood up and screamed, ‘Disqualified!’ It was all just so stupid, but you’ll never be able to have a moment like that ever again.”

Hearing the stories about the way things used to be, it made the current state of comedy seem somewhat stale and staid. It just seemd like there used to be so much more than the emcee, the feature act, the headliner and then, “Thanks a lot! Don’t forget to tip the wait staff!”

“Right!”Dow agreed, before going into another story about the way things were. “There were these guys, Rich Purpura, who was a comedy/magician, and Tim Walko, a guitarist, and they were both from Chicago. We’d do a show, just packing the place, but at the end, we’d just get up there and jam and kept the show going and clown around with each other. By then, we were just trying to make each other laugh, and that’s what the audience liked. It was kind of like. It was kind of like having the Rat Pack or something. It was that kind of feel, where everybody’s in the groove.”

In speaking about the origins of Wiley’s, I asked Dow how he came to have such a following there (that is still quite fervent even to this day), but also how he came to meet the current owner of Wiley’s, comedian Rob Haney.

“Rob came up to me one time and said, ‘Can I get up and do some time? I just got back from The Comedy Store.’ He had just done some showcasing there…which surprised me because Rob was a bouncer in a bar I used to work at…”

I was quick to learn that almost every story that Dow told led into another story, with sequels and prequels thrown in just to keep things interesting. Backtracking, I finally found out about the first time he had met Rob Haney.

“When I first met him, he was a doorman at a place called The Bar in West Carrollton. It was a rough little joint that ended up being Omar’s for a while and then Fricker’s. It was an old basement bar and the family that owned it was pretty rugged. I actually had guns pulled on me in that bar. It was rough and there were a lot of biker guys in there, but I was playing in there for a while.” Dow said, before getting back on tack. “Rob and I started talking at the bar and then, all of a sudden, he realized that when he was at Wright State he had seen me in a theater production and we talked about that for a while. Anyway, at that time, Rob had like shoulder length hair, so it was a different Rob Haney that came up to me some time later with short hair and asked if he could do like a twenty minute set. I said, ‘Sure!’ I let him up onstage at the Trolley Stop…”

And the rest, as they say, is history. Dow appears at Wiley’s two times a year, bringing with him his bag of masks, his banjo, a balanced mix of new material and old favorites. If you have never seen Dow onstage, do yourself a favor and check him out this week at Wiley’s. He will be appearing Thursday, December 16th at 8:00 pm, Friday December 17th at 9:00 pm, Saturday December 18th at 8:00 pm and 10:30 pm and Sunday December 19th at 8:00 pm. Tickets range from $5 to $12. For more information or to make reservations, call (937) 224-JOKE or go online to www.wileyscomedyclub.com.

The Theater Of The Strange

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Comedian Dow Thomas Reminisces About The Dayton Comedy Scene

12/15/10

            It’s very rare for someone to be able to meet any of the people that were instrumental in warping the needle on their moral compass. For example, in the future, the odds are astronomically against my kids ever meeting up with Snooki, the creator of Grand Theft Auto or any or the Real Housewives of Poughkeepsie. I, however, was able to talk with one of the people who were instrumental in changing my vision and giving me the ability to see the world through laughing eyes: Dow Thomas. Dow is a musician, comedian and actor, who was, at one time, a script writer and musician for the notoriously wonderful local program shown on channel 22 and hosted by Dr. Creep called Shock Theater…a show that I was an avid fan of when I was a kid.

I was able to speak with Dow recently from his Floridahome. The first question I asked was whether or not Shock Theater was his introduction into the world of comedy.

“No. I was actually doing comedy in 1972, but at that time there weren’t any comedy clubs, so I was just doing comedy along with my music. I got with Dr. Creep in the late seventies when it was called Saturday Night Dead because they had him on after Saturday Night Live, so it was kind of a neat spot.” Dow reflected on the first time he was on Dr. Creep’s show, saying, “I wrote The Ballad of Dr. Creep and went on there with my girlfriend at the time, Astrid Socrates. I remember some of the early stuff. It was juvenile jokes and stuff, but that was what they (the television station) wanted because they wanted everything clean, stupid and quick.”

If there were no comedy clubs, what venues did he perform in? Dow told me that he would just play in the local bars, places like the Trolley Stop, The Bar and The Iron Boar.

“I would get hired as a musician/entertainer and just add in the comedy in between songs. I would always put on masks and stuff…I just can’t help myself from clowning around. I’d have the gig and eventually I had bands, but when I clowned around, everyone clowned around with me. What was always part of the show was me being stupid.” Dow said. “Sailcats was one of the early comedy songs I wrote which got people to throwing plates at me and that just started it all. We used to sing The Wonderful World of Toilet Paper and we used to TP all the clubs like Clancy’s and the old Wiley’s, which was The Iron Boar originally. But comedy was always a thing with me.”

Since this was predating the eighties comedy boom, I wondered how the comedy scene evolved inDayton. After talking with Dow over an hour, I got a sense of how paradoxically brutal and liberating the process was.

“I was doing The Iron Boar only on Sundays and Wiley had hired me to do it by myself and so I basically got rid of the band…but I still had jam sessions. I was primarily a single act and that’s when I went almost strictly comedy. Back then, I had to do five hours, like from nine to two in the morning, so you had to have a lot of material.” Dow added a couple of memories from the early days ofDaytoncomedy, saying, “We had a comedy night on Tuesdays…and people still bitched about the dollar door charge! It was just crazy. I remember D.L. Stewart came in and did a little bit one night and then wrote an article about the experience.”

Since he had seen the whole evolution of the comedy scene, I wondered whether he felt that it had become too rigid, too structured.

“Yeah…yeah I do. Back then I could have Emo Philips come in and do twenty minutes and then I’d get a chance to go to the bathroom. Then maybe Judy Tenuta would come in and do twenty to thirty minutes…and then I’d get a chance to go to the bathroom.” Dow related that, “For me, I thought it should go on all night because I had been out to the Comedy Store and all of these places. I mean, I had moved out toL.A.in 1983 and I spent a couple of years out there going to different clubs. Back then, nobody closed their bar after the show. A lot of times, we’d all be up doing improv.”

Dow was not a native resident of Dayton, having moved here to attend Wright State, but he quickly adopted the city as his own. He became a habitué of the Arcade, the local bars and the dinner clubs ofDayton. I asked when he had moved from Dayton to his current residence inFlorida.

“Uh…let’s see (yelling to his wife)…Kay! When did we move down here? What year was that? 1997.” Dow the related a funny anecdote. “After we moved, aDaytonnewspaper im

 

mediately voted me the funniest man inDayton…then they did it again the next year. They voted me the funniest man inDaytonfor two straight years and I wasn’t even living there!”

The paper in question used to be called The Dayton Voice…then Impact Weekly…and now it is known as the Dayton City Paper. Maybe we were just still pretending that our Uncle Dow hadn’t left our fair city.

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Heywood Holds A Hootenanny

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The Insane Genius Of Heywood Banks

The first time I saw Heywood Banks (aka Stuart Mitchell), it was in the late eighties at Wiley’s Comedy Club at it’s original location on Patterson Rd. right next to The Pony Keg. I had no clue who he was…I just had free tickets. I can’t remember anything about the opening act, but when Heywood appeared on the stage, I knew that things were going to be different. Not different as in “life changing” or radically cutting edge. More like the way one might describe that weird cousin that never leaves his room, is continually clothed in dirty sweatpants and a Transformers T-shirt and keeps a collection of flies that he has caught because they’re his “friends.”

Heywood bounded up onstage in a glaringly mismatched outfit that would make a 1970’s used car salesman jealous. His horn rimmed glasses glinted in the spotlight and across his iridescent green and yellow plaid sport coat. He held within his hand a well worn, yet shiny guitar and a moment of mild trepidation filled my soul as I wondered what form of musical yodeling I would have to endure. Remember; this was the time of Weird Al and Dr. Gonzo and everyone that could play four chords and did not possess the sex appeal and/or impenetrable liver needed to become a rock star fancied themselves a comedian instead.

Luckily, my fears quickly melted away as Heywood launched into a blurred performance that was absolutely relentless. The comedic hits rained down so fast that your brain couldn’t keep up. You found yourself laughing at a subtle play on words or a particularly astute cultural reference from two songs back and ended up kicking your brain and ears into overdrive, feverishly attempting to catch up with Heywood’s maniacal pace.

Heywood Banks and Emmi Rehmert ~ May 2010

Years later, at Wiley’s new location in the Oregon District, I was standing outside smoking when I noticed a disheveled man extricating himself from behind the wheel of his car, which was loaded floor to ceiling with boxes, junk and a precariously placed toaster that was inexplicably jammed against the back window. The man fumbled about with this box and then that one, his hair a wild, untamed gray banner blowing in the wind. As he stood up and pulled at his goatee, I was struck by the fact that if you slammed a Confederate uniform onto his thin frame, he would make a perfect performer for a Civil War reenactment. I felt a pang of shame as I stood there, entertaining such thoughts about someone who clearly had to be homeless. I looked on with pity as he dove into the car, burrowing towards the back to retrieve, of all things, the toaster!

All things became clear as he wrenched his way out of the car and yelled to Rob Haney, the current owner of Wiley’s Comedy Niteclub, “Do you have two forks?”

A musical genius does require his instrument.

Heywood’s last tenure at Wiley’s Comedy Niteclub was a largely sold out affair, with night after night of wall to wall people crowding Wiley’s walls laughing hysterically at Heywood’s musical musings and quick comedic wit. Offstage, Heywood possesses a very amiable personality and has an interest in a wide variety of subjects, including history and prognostications of future events. Night after night, throngs of fans would line up to get an autograph or just to get their picture taken with the uniquely clothed comedian, taking with them a token of a perfect evening of comedy.

To be able to witness for yourself the frenzied freestyle comedy of Heywood Banks, Wiley’s Comedy Niteclub will be hosting a series of special shows featuring the comedian on  Thursday October 28th at 7:30 pm  and for two shows on Friday October 29th at 7:00 pm and 9:30 pm. Admission is $15 on Thursday and $20 for Friday’s shows. Since this is a special show, no passes, coupons or offers will be accpted. Heywood is best known for his songs Toast!, Big Butter Jesus as well as a score of other tunes, which you can check out on his website at www.heywoodbanks.com .

Queer As Funny

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Poppy Champlin Brings The Queer Queens Of Qomedy To Wiley’s

The Queer Queens Of Qomedy are Qumming! Not only is that poor grammar, but it sounds more than a bit dirty as well. Poppy Champlin, creator of the Queer Queens of Qomedy, has been a staple of the comedy scene, appearing on Comic’s Unleashed with Byron Allen, Rosie O’Donnell’s Stand-up Spotlight and has recently unveiled a new show on Showtime called Pride: The Gay and Lesbian Comedy Slam. Having spoken with Poppy several times over the years, one thing that she has stated over and over was that the show was not strictly geared towards the LGBT crowd as well as her love of Wiley’s Comedy Niteclub itself.

Appearing with Poppy this time around are comedians Dana Austin, who hails from Cleveland, and Shann Carr, who has published a hilarious book called, You’re Going To Be Gay! The Queer Queens will reign over Wiley’s on Thursday September 9th at 8:00 pm, Friday at 9:00 pm, Saturday at 8:00 pm and 10:30 pm and then on Sunday at 8:00 pm. Tickets range from $10 to $20, so either call (937) 224-JOKE (5653) for more information or to make reservations or go to Wiley’s website at www.wileyscomedyclub.com.

J.T.: Since the name of the tour is The Queer Queens of Qomedy, I’m going let you give me an overview of what people can expect.
Poppy: Well, this is something new that we’re doing in Dayton that we’ve never done before, which I’m looking forward to seeing how it goes. Usually we just do one night wherever we go. Like in Chicago, we did one night and we had a good show. Now, this will be different because we’ll be at Wiley’s from Thursday through Sunday. The two other comics that I’m bringing are really, really, really good and they’re really well known in the queer comedy world, so it’s giving people more of an opportunity to see them over a longer amount of time. These two comics…Shann Carr is a story teller comedian and weaves a story and then slams you with a great punchline. Dana Austin is a African American comic who tells it like it is, so pay attention. They’re more mainstream, so hopefully the people in the area that are used to great comedy, because I know Wiley’s gets great comics, they can also come and enjoy this without feeling like they’re going to be inundated with gay this and gay that. It’s really more great comedy than it is queer comedy…but, it is queer. We are all gay.

J.T.: You have made Wiley’s a regular stop on your yearly tours. What is it about the club that you like?
Poppy: I like Wileys because it is an old comedy club and there is plenty of comedy chi in the room and I am a part of the old guard of comics and belong in that room.

J.T.: Are you going to have to change up the act a little bit to accommodate playing at Wiley’s?
Poppy: Yeah, I’ll change it a little. I mean, I used to play there all the time. I used to do Wiley’s back in 92’-93’…and I think even 91’…and I used to have a blast!

J.T.: …and you will find that it hasn’t changed since then.
Poppy: (Laughs) Yeah, it was a blast and I always used to just have so much fun there. I remember that I was the one who had broken the record there for being the longest on stage. I mean, since then, it’s been broken many times, but I remember being up there for like two hours one time. You know, I was just sitting up there just drinking and buying people shots and they’re buying me shots and we were just having a good time. I just know that Wiley’s is a fun place and when people go there, they always have a good time. This time around, I would probably bring out more of my drinking material versus some feminist material or something like that, so, more towards blue collar material and whatever works in the area.
J.T.: Do you feel that your shows kind of bridge the gap between the LGBT communities and “mainstream” communities?
Poppy: They sure could bridge the gap if the straight community would be daring enough to check us out…

J.T.: Do you think that the Queer Queens of Qomedy Tour challenges people’s perceptions?
Poppy: Yes it is tough to get past the name sometimes and those that are scared by the name do not show up and those that are not scared by the name come out and don’t even consider the name for the next one or one like it.

J.T.: Do you have a large following of fans in the Dayton and Miami Valley area?
Poppy: This is the 3rd year so when the word goes out that we are coming the LGBT community rallies and puts it out on the net and since it is a relatively small community, so the peeps should come out to support and enjoy!

“So A Dyslexic Walks Into A Bra…”

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…and Other Tales From the Fringe of Dayton’s Comedy Scene.

The only sound cutting through the sea of silence is a slight feedback whine as the flop sweat pours from your forehead, reflecting chromatic prisms from the glaring, white-hot spotlight. You clench the microphone with sweat-slicked hands, as your mind becomes an echoing chamber of panic. You can’t even make out the faces in the crowd, the piercing light obliterates their features, changing the warmth of humanity into an amorphous blob of judgment. How could this have happened? Your mom told you that you were funny. The clerk at UDF always laughed at your jokes. Your shadow, nailed against the faux brick wall by the merciless spotlight, seems to shrink as your confidence bids you a fond adieu, leaving you for climes that are more hospitable. You either recover quickly, raining down a torrent of bon mots to cover your previous gaffe, or you walk the longest walk ever made under the glaring reproach of the unamused.
Stand up comedy is one of the least understood and surely one of the most minimally regarded of the performing arts, yet it is one of the most difficult crafts to hone, execute and endure. The constant pressure to produce and perform is unrelenting. Development of a single joke’s precision, synthesis and rhythm is always evolving. The eternal search for material, the sharpening of lines, the shaping of words and the final development of delivery is exhaustive. Ironically, just as perfection is almost within reach, the material is usually scrapped because it is no longer topical or has become tired and mawkish and now, all new material must be captured and crafted.
In an attempt to check out the local comedy scene with an eye for how they all got started, I interviewed several local comics. Some of them are fairly new to the landscape, appearing at open mic nights for very little or no compensation, while others are national road veterans, having amassed quite an impressive resume’. The first question that arises would have to be why anyone would want to pursue a career in comedy in the first place.
A seasoned comedian, Mark Fradl, started his career in 1992 and ran hard until 1999, before abruptly leaving the stage completely for various reasons, including being burnt out on the road and its day to day hustle. He returned to stand up several years ago because the desire for performing live was re-ignited within him. When I asked him recently why anyone would get into comedy, he said, “I think you’ll find most comics have the same story: people told them they were funny. They somehow got up the courage to go up that first time at an open mic night (still the hardest thing I’ve ever done) and they just kept doing it. The dream starts huge – Tonight Show, Letterman, sitcom – but quickly narrows down to more immediate goals – get a strong five minutes, get a strong fifteen minutes, get ANY work, get good work, and then the Holy Grail of goals: quit the day job. I think that’s what keeps people in it, there’s always another little rung to climb. Step-by-step you’re deeper into the life.”
Ryan Singer, who used to be a schoolteacher for Dayton Public Schools and is now on national tours stated candidly, “I just had to. It is that simple. As a kid I remember seeing standup comedians on television and thinking to myself, ‘that is the best job ever!'”
A recent college graduate as well as a fairly current addition to the local comedy scene, Mat Thornburg took a slightly different route to the stage. “I was really involved in theater in high school” he wrote me, “and I always ended up getting cast as the comic relief. People kept telling me that I should try standup comedy, but I had no idea how to get started. Then when I was in college they had a comedy contest to win tickets to see Dane Cook. So I guess you could say the reason I got on stage the first time was because I wanted to see Dane Cook, but really it was something that I was going to do sooner or later and the contest was just an easy way to make that first step.”
Jeff Bang, nicknamed, quite unimaginatively ‘Banger’, is a butcher by day and does stand up locally as well as working at Wiley’s comedy club as a…well…I’m not really sure what Banger does, keeping me company while I stand outside and smoke, I guess. Anyway, when I asked him why he kept doing stand up, he answered my question with a question.
“Why do I keep doing it? Do you know what it’s like to get a good high? A big rush?” To which I replied that not only had I never imbibed in any illicit drugs in the past, I would eschew all illegal substances in the future if in fact any illegal substances were presented to me. He did not believe me, informing me that I was full of bovine fecal matter and continued onto his point. “There is no bigger rush than standing on a stage and making people laugh. There is no bigger rush. You get up there and do it and you have however many people are there, a hundred, a thousand, however many, and they’re in the palm of your hand and they are just hanging on every word. There is no bigger rush than that.”
Mark Fradl echoed Banger’s reasoning with, “…the good shows are great enough to get you through the bad ones. There’s still the insane rush of coming up with an idea and doing it on stage that night and honing it show after show. And there’s still a thrill in seeing how you’re bringing some pure laughter into someone’s life.”
“You’ve got to have that burning desire like 24/7 that makes you want to go out… just want to go out. You’re scared and nervous, but you want to go out there.” remarks James Earl Tompkins from Springfield. Originally from the East Side of Chicago, he landed at Wilberforce and Central State in his mid-twenties. His inspiration actually came from a speech class where he learned how to debate and discuss topics. He saw that he could apply those concepts to comedy and began trying to hone the mechanics at open mic events. His first forays did not always go as planned. “I felt so small on a lot of those days. I just wanted to hide. Hide out for weeks.” He sought solace in books that showed him the pitfalls of failure and how to strike back and overcome over adversity.
Egyptian born Sherif Hedeyat, who lives in a three-bedroom sleeper cell in Centerville and is one of the members of the Axis of Evil Comedy Tour, started in much the same way. While attending Wright State University, he tried out an open mic night at the now defunct Joker’s Comedy Café.
“I remember I was in the lounge at Wright State,” Sherif recalls, “and I remember somebody saying, ‘Hey, you’re pretty funny. You should try doing comedy at Joker’s.’ I went in there one night and just ate it bad. Literally it was like a year between my first and second time on stage because I was sitting there going, ‘Man! That was a painful experience!’ Then the second time on stage…well, it’s kind of like a drug. You start once, then you go back a while later and then you start to want it and you get better and you want it more, and it progressed.”
With ego crushing moments, little or no pay and the constant reworking of material, why would some partially sane person keep subjecting themselves to this potentially abusive mistress? The rush and the possibility of fame and fortune are motivating forces, but definitely not one that ranks the highest in most of the comedians’ minds that I interviewed.
“I keep doing it because there’s nothing else that provides the same thrill or satisfaction.” says Mat Thornburg. “Standup is great because you know instantly how you’re doing. That can be bad when you’re not doing well, but when you are doing well it’s great to hear it in the audience’s laughter. I think another reason I keep doing it is that there’s always room for improvement. There’s always something I can get better at or something I can make funnier and every performance is an opportunity to learn something new about standup and what works for you as a performer.”
I wondered if the national headliners looked down upon the aspiring comedian with disdain. Having already slogged up the mountain, did they view the local comics as untalented plebes or would they remember the arduous journey that they themselves had made and offer some assistance. I asked Banger this question, because he has a unique perspective, hanging out at Wiley’s, doing whatever it is he does there.
“A good headliner will look at an open mic guy that’s ‘got it’, especially the ones who’ve ‘got it’, and encourage them and they’ll give them little tips here and there.” Jeff said, “The ones (headliners) who are stuck on themselves, and they’re not usually the best headliner in the world, those are the ones that look down on the open mic guys.”
Ryan Singer had a slightly differing view, stating, “I think headliners don’t spend much time thinking about the local comedians one way or the other. I think headliners have their own careers to worry about and especially in the business nowadays, it can be brutal because there are so many comedians out there trying to work the same rooms. It is a tough business and when you do find a headliner that wants to help you, it is truly a random act of kindness. There are those that enjoy seeing the local comedians and offer good advice about building a career. Most young comedians don’t want to hear the advice because is all about patience and hard work. It takes a long time to become an overnight success in comedy.”
The Dayton and surrounding area has nurtured many nationally known humorists and comedians. Jonathan Winters, Erma Bombeck, Dave Chappelle, Drew Hastings, Dave Zage, Kenny Smith, Jesse Joyce, Gary Owen, Rob Haney…the list goes on and on. Is the Dayton comedy scene still a vibrant and living player on the national stage?
“Actually, I see a lot of good, up and coming comedians.” said Sherif. “There was a time for several years when we (local comedians) weren’t working ‘together’. I mean, when I came up, Cincinnati had Josh Sneed, Greg Warren and those guys, they were all hanging out together, they were writing together, they were in the clubs hanging out, they were creating that scene. In Dayton, it was almost like everyone was just doing their own thing or they were going to Cincinnati or Columbus to hang out. It seems like ever since the Funnybone opened (in Beavercreek) we got a whole new clientele and audience and we’ve got a whole new crop of comedians.”
To stand at a microphone alone, captured by the spotlight in front of a group of strangers with the intent of making them laugh is a daunting task unto itself. A classically trained actor performing a one man show does not have to carefully gauge the spectators and change up lines in midstream or alter the dialogue to please his audience. If an audience came to see Hamlet, then Hamlet they shall see. Yet how do you please a group that just shows up with the expectation of being made to laugh? Everyone’s sensibilities and sense of humor are truly not the same. The ability to have a rural farmer sitting next to a office worker who is seated near a college student and having them all succumbing to the least understood of all human reactions, that of laughter…well, one is truly encountering art at its most refined.
You can check out some of the best that the area has to offer almost any given Sunday at Wiley’s Comedy Niteclub (check website for details). This coming month, from July 1st through the 4th, Wiley’s will be holding a comedy contest, which I would like to think of as a Comedic Thunderdome-esque Cage Match of Epic Proportions, but Rob Haney just tells me to shut up when I say things like that. Anyway, you can come down and watch the best of the best compete for comedic glory or, since there is enough time, stand in front of a mirror, your dog and your family for a month, spitting the best anecdotes and one liners you can think of, honing your skills for the Big Time! The winner will receive $1,000 in American currency and forever secure their place in the Dayton’s Hall of Humor…well, if we had one of those here in Dayton, I’m sure that you would be secured there. Check out the open mic nights, and especially come out and support the local talent for the Wiley’s Comedy Contest on Thursday, July 1st at 8:30 pm, Friday, July 2nd at 9:00 pm, Saturday July 3rd at 8:00 pm and 10:30 pm and Sunday, July 4th at 8:30 pm. Tickets are a mere $2. To enter the contest yourself, contact via e-mail Jack Wilson funnymayor@aol.com.

Droopy Drew Donisi: El Dago Diablo

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“Droopy” Drew Discusses Donnie Baker, Motor Boatin’ And Fun

Hailing from the deep south (somewhere around the Franklin, Ohio area), “Droopy” Drew Donisi takes the stage brandishing a guitar to play his own originally warped southern rock tinged tunes. Drew’s approach to comedy is open, engaging the audience with his sincere bouts of storytelling interspersed with original melodies.

“I don’t want to complain and I don’t want to get on stage and bitch about anything.” Drew said during a recent interview. “I just want to tell a story that I may have made up, but it’s going to be a funny ass story.”

Headlining at Wiley’s brings this local comedian full circle as he had originally started his comedic career performing open mic sessions there.

“I did the open mic thing there on Sunday nights, trying out new material and ideas that I had and that’s where I came up with all my songs.” Drew reflected. “You know those open mic nights were just having fun.”

Fun seems to be the watchword of Drew’s performances. He seems to be more concerned about giving the audience a brief respite from their daily concerns and allow them the just let loose, have fun and possibly sing along to one of his many original songs. Some of his could be seen as purely sophomoric, but again, they are purely just for fun. I asked him about the process of writing the songs, whether the melody comes first and the words are hung upon it or if the tune is written around the words…and where did he come up with the ideas for the songs?

            “Well, like that Motor Boatin’ song.” he said. “I saw somebody with big (globular mounds of flesh found on the chests of females)…I know you can’t write that in the article, but…and I was like, ‘Holy smokes!’ and I just started thinking that there are a lot of things that I like to do, but that is one of the things that I love to do, so I just made the whole song about things that I like to do, but the one thing I love to do is motor boatin’.”

And no, if you don’t know what motor boating is, I’m not going to tell you. That’s what the Internet is for. While this and some of Drew’s other songs are riddled with sexual innuendos, a lot of his material is extremely accessible by all audiences. His humor and prowess with the guitar even caught the eye of the Bob and Tom camp. Drew has opened for Donnie Baker on several occasion (the most recently being in Indianapolis in April) and has appeared on the Bob and Tom Show. I asked Drew to fill in the details on how he came to meet Donnie Baker.

“I featured for Dwight York at Wiley’s last year and Donnie came in and did two shows. Dwight moved down to feature and I moved down to opener.” he related, “which, as you know, when they bring somebody big in, the opener usually gets dropped. So Rob (Haney, owner of Wiley’s) kept me in the rotation. So, I hit it off with the band and Donnie was really easy to work with.”

            Drew’s direct approach and unpretentious acceptance of what he wants his comedy to convey has made him a favorite son of not only Wiley’s, but many other venues around the country. His good natured demeanor reflects in the honest answer that he gave me pertaining to what he wanted audiences to take away from his shows:

“All I’m trying to do when I’m doing my comedy is to give the audience the chance to forget about the crap outside the doors.” he said. “When they come in, it’s just stupid humor. It’s nothing that you have to think about. It’s nothing that you really have to know any politics. It’s just a good time out with your friends and a guy that will make you laugh.”

(Writer’s Note: Sadly, Drew passed away suddenly on March 10th, 2012. You will be missed by many “Droopy.”)

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The Dichotomy Of Comedy

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Mark Fradl Brings Clever Comedy To Wiley’s

            Throughout the history of mankind, smiling, laughter and humor have become noted as an integral part of our genetic makeup, as evidenced in the rudimentary, usually obscene, hieroglyphs of the Egyptians, the crudely drawn doggerel of the Greeks and Romans and on through to the laborious treatises written by philosophers, psychologists, psychiatrists and medical doctors over the ages. Although the impetus for laughter varies wildly from individual to individual, the reaction itself is one of the most universally accepted, yet least understood in the lexicon of human responses.

Plato examined the negative aspects of humor in his exposition entitled The Republic, and concluded that the inherent “psychopathic laughter” was indicative of one’s envy and malice against his fellow man or an egocentric method to secure one’s superiority through the brutal ridiculing of others shortcomings, circumstances or lower social status. Arthur Schopenhauer later developed his “theory of the absurd,” which, simply stated, says that laughter is the reaction to the realization that a person’s expectations have been been misdirected by an incongruous element that, in the final analysis, is absolutely ridiculous. Theorists and scholars have postulated wildly divergent theories as to the origin of laughter and humor, yet have been shown to be debatable at best.

The reason I am expounding on the theories of humor in this rather long winded intro is that it reminded me of a series of correspondences I began with comedian Mark Fradl sometime back in late 2007, a dialogue that has been maintained into the present. When I first corresponded with Fradle, a Dayton native who splits his time  between here and Austin, TX, he was just getting back into the comedy scene after taking a six year hiatus after becoming somewhat disillusioned with the world of comedy. Even after reemerging on stage around 2005, Fradl still remained somewhat nihilistic with regards to the direction mainstream comedy was heading in as well as the broad cross section of audiences who are less interested in clever comedy as they are in being entertained. One of the reoccurring themes of lie within the definition and decisive nature of a certain type of comedian.

“There’s the dark breed that want to connect with the audience…but only on their terms.  As I write that, I’m realizing that this is really where the difference lies between the good comics and the hacks; Are you trying to put yourself where they are or are you trying to bring them over to where you are?” Fradl went on, referencing some previous discussions that we had had on the topic. “So that goes back to something we ended on yesterday; The difference between trying to bring the crowd onto your way of thinking, or pandering down to meet their way of thinking. Are you making them say, ‘Yeah, that’s what I always say too!’ or are you making them say ‘Hey, I never looked at it that way – he’s right!’”

The universal appeal of comedy is almost as illusive as it is accepted. While on the one hand, almost everyone needs the release that laughter offers, while at the same time, what one person may find as patently offensive another may find absolutely hilarious.

            “Again it comes back to the unique nature of comedy. It has to have more universality than almost any other art form I can think of. Gore Vidal is a legend, yet most people have never read one of his books. Leonard Cohen or Tom Waits are never played on the radio and yet they’ve had immensely influential careers; but you really can’t be in a niche in comedy. The comic equivalent of Tom Waits or Leonard Cohen or Elvis Costello would die a miserable death in the average club. Even legends like Bill Hicks, Mitch Hedburg and Doug Stanhope were banned by more clubs than they worked, and only through years of persistence did they build their followings and move from clubs to theaters.”

At one point, Fradl was able to clarify, somewhat, was the nature of comedy for the masses with a rather apropos metaphor.

“Ranch dressing is bland, inoffensive (except to those who are offended by it’s inoffensiveness), and sells by the bucket load.  No one’s ever sold a bucket of Sesame Ginger Wasabi Vinaigrette.  You can’t get Roast Raspberry Chipotle dressing in a 64 ounce squeeze bottle.  Likewise, comedy has to appeal to the broadest possible market.  In most cities there are only one or two clubs, and those clubs survive only by attracting the largest cross section of the population – suburban couples, urban hipsters, a couple celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary, a bachelorette party, the trucker, the lawyer, the graphic artist, the cashier and the fry cook. Imagine coming up with anything that group can agree on.  Best to just put out the ranch dressing – a lot of people will love it, most will like it, and even those who hate it won’t be surprised to see it.  Welcome to comedy.”

As an example of the seemingly incongruous separation between brilliance and mass acceptance, Fradl related a personal experience he had.

“Bill Hicks is a legend of comedy, right up there with Lenny Bruce or young Woody Allen, but I don’t think most people know that when he was alive, his career was struggling. Even with numerous Letterman appearances and several HBO solo specials, he was having a hard time getting work because he wasn’t for everyone. I saw him live in 1992 in Cleveland and he ate it.” Fradl recollects that, “We were sitting in the second row in a room filled with 500 people just dying at his dark rantings, and I remember turning around at one point and seeing 495 faces staring at us, trying to figure out what the hell we thought was so funny.”

Comedy is the act of walking a thin tightrope in the dark, always at the mercy of the prevailing winds of public opinion and never really sure how far the fall might be, especially for a comedian who is just starting out or struggling to get ahead. Even road veterans are sometimes tripped up by the seemingly arbitrary change in social mores or the pressure of honing their material to appeal to the largest swath of the populace.

“But that argument misses an important point, one I’m only just now realizing as I think about this. Comedians are not weakened by this limitation, this need to create within a box. It is, in fact, our greatest asset, because it forces us to communicate our ideas with people who might not otherwise entertain such thoughts. This is our advantage over avant-garde performance artists, or fringe theater, or the protest singer touring the Unitarian Church basement circuit. The problem with deeply controversial art is that it never gets outside its own bubble.”

Fradl’s comedic appeal is one that is fast and intelligent while still being accessible to virtually every audience. It’s a hard course to chart, but one that Fradl has navigated through many times over. While Fradl has no problem with the the comedic form being used as simple, straightforward entertainment, it is just not the type of comedy that he is striving for. While mainstream comedy definitely has its place within the pantheon of comic legends, some of the clubs across the nation actually contribute to the dilution of the color of comedy, sometimes to the point where it becomes translucent. Clubs whose main audiences are drawn from a rather large, arbitrary swath of folks who may just be looking for some mild entertainment in between dinner and dancing at the club, people who may or may not even care about the actually artistic nature of comedy.

Over the course of years, I was easily able to discern a marked difference in the tone of Fradl’s recent emails and I wondered if current world events had changed people’s acceptance of comedy and, if so, were these changes good or bad.

“I’ll tell you one thing that has changed very much for me in the last five months is that my bit of cynicism about comedy has evaporated. In all the years of doing comedy, I’ve never seen people so appreciative and receptive to comedy.” Fradl went on to say, “Not to sound trite, but there’s this almost tangible need for relief. People have always come up after a show and told me they had a great time or they thought I was funny, but lately it’s been more about them expressing how much they needed to have this good time and how grateful they are to hear something that connects with them.”

On a parting note, Fradl imparted an insight into the misconception that plagues those of us that don’t live in one of the magical meccas of entertainment.

“A quick clarification of terms – when I’m talking about comedy here, I’m not talking about the stand up that happens at some experimental theater in Los Angeles or in a basement open mic in New York City.  I’m talking about the comedy that takes place in strip mall clubs and bar one-niters (Comedy Thursday Night!  Mechanical Bull Friday Night!) in the artistically unappreciated part of the country, which is to say most of it. A comic I worked with last week in Cleveland said ‘So, what do people do here in Cleveland?  I grew up in NYC and live in LA, I always figured everything in between was Kansas.’   Nice of him to bestow upon us his august insights.”

You can check out some of Fradl’s clips and commentaries on his website, www.markcomedy.com or follow his schedule to see when he will next be appearing at one of the many venues in around the country.

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