The Politics of Funny

[Timber Loftis]

I open up the newspaper, and see this article. What a coincidence. Maybe I should have paid more attention to the Celestine Prophecy.

September 24, 2004
The Politics of Funny, or Vice Versa
By JESSE McKINLEY

ON Monday night, George W. Bush and John Kerry were both in Midtown Manhattan at big-dollar fund-raisers doing the things that presidential candidates do: shaking hands, smiling for photos and collecting checks.

But while the crowds at their respective parties may have been fawning, little did either man know that not far away, each was getting positively shellacked by none other than Jackie Mason, the love-him-or-hate-him borscht belter who was calling out Mr. Bush's slips, Mr. Kerry's flips and everything in between.

"When you see Bush in the White House, he looks like he can't believe he got the job," Mr. Mason told the crowd that packed the Gotham Comedy Club, an upscale establishment on West 22nd Street. "But he's not dumb. He's a brilliant speaker. It just so happens that English is not his field."

And then he was on to Mr. Bush's opponent. "Kerry disagrees with himself every 20 minutes," Mr. Mason continued. "But he just agreed on the debates. The first two are going to be with himself."

The crowd, 200 strong, ate it up, laughing with equal gusto at jokes about Mr. Kerry and Mr. Bush. But Mr. Mason is far from the only comic in town engaging in the time-honored tradition of scoring laughs at the expense of Republican and Democratic presidential contenders. (Ralph Nader, apparently, doesn't really get laughs in stand-up comedy. Or in real life, for that matter.)

While big-name comics like Jon Stewart, Bill Maher and Chris Rock make headlines with their political barbs, work-a-day comedians in comedy clubs all across the city are making hay with jibes like this:

"The president says the world hates us, they hate our freedom," said Kyle Grooms, a young comic caught on Saturday at the Boston Comedy Club in Greenwich Village. "I don't think it's us, though, Mr. Bush. I think its you."

Sherrod Small, a Brooklyn native working the (subterranean) room at the Comedy Cellar on Macdougal Street, said: "Some call Bush a dumb man. But I'm the one telling penis jokes in a basement."

And this from Marc Theobald, the M.C. on Saturday at the Boston: "I'm going to vote for Kerry. [Pause] He's going to lose, but, I'm going to vote for him."

Listen to enough of the journeymen in the local comedy trenches and certain themes arise, not all of which are going to make Democrats happy. Mr. Kerry, it seems, is roundly considered by the chuckling class to be a bad campaigner with an even worse head. (Phrases like "horse head" and "caught in a fun house mirror" are tossed about pretty casually, as are comparisons to those talking trees in "The Lord of the Rings.")

"He doesn't have a presidential face," Mr. Theobald said. "If you were sitting in a doctor's office and he walked in, you'd say, `Oh, my God, I'm dying.' "

The president, however, remains the favorite target, taking heat on predictable points like his smarts (or supposed lack thereof) and — often more pointedly — the war in Iraq.

"I hear the war for Iraq has cost us $200 billion," said Matt Bellace, caught at Caroline's on Broadway. "Did anyone think of just buying Iraq?"

Joke Not for Everyone

Joking about serious, sometimes deadly serious, topics is a time-honored comedic tradition. But comments about Iraq also seem to be part of a new batch of jokes — often delivered by nervous young men of draft age — about the armed forces.

"I got a call from a Marine recruiter saying, `You sound like a young man who needs direction,' " said Lamar Williams, an amiable gap-toothed comic in his early 20's. "I said: `I read the paper. I'm not going anywhere.' "

There's even some pining for the good old days of Bill. "Clinton's book is 957 pages," said Scott Blakeman, a comic who is host of a show called "Laughs From the Left" and does — not surprisingly — a lot of Bush jokes. "Isn't it nice to know we once had a president who could write 957 pages?"

Not all political material, of course, is a sure thing (or regularly found in mainstream clubs, for that matter; alternative comedy shows like "Eating It!" on Monday nights at Luna Lounge on the Lower East Side, or shows at alternative clubs, like the Upright Citizens Brigade on West 26th Street, are often more overtly political).

Some comics say that in a divided electorate, it's not always safe to bring politics into the routine out on the comedic hustings. "I do some political stuff when I'm in the city, but when I leave, not so much," said Tim Young, who regularly performs around the nation. "In Bush country, or even neutral territory, which a lot of the country is, you just get silence."

Other comedians complain that audiences — besieged by talk radio, 24-hour news channels and all those newspapers — are just plain tired of hearing about politics and that, moreover, political material doesn't age well at all. "You want to use your time onstage to develop stuff that lasts past November," said Andy Vastola, a comedian from Brooklyn seen at the Comic Strip Live.

Hunting for a Kerry Joke

And indeed, as a recent visit to more than a half-dozen of the city's major comedy clubs confirmed, many comics seem content to avoid politics in favor of safer material about airlines, girlfriends, boyfriends, pornography, nude beaches, cellphones, hurricanes and, of course, Michael Jackson. (He's apparently quite odd.) Gov. James E. McGreevey, who recently disclosed that he is gay, also gets quite a bit of ribbing, both good-natured and less so.

But in an especially charged campaign, with polls showing a tight race, those who do go out on a political limb in the city's major clubs often get big laughs. They can also be — sociologists and political analysts, take note — unusually canny about telling us what we're thinking, feeling insecure about or finding ridiculous. Or at the very least, what makes us giggle after a two-drink minimum.

Unlike the easily read (or blue) electoral map, it's difficult to pinpoint exactly where you can regularly find political material in the major clubs. Some, like Gotham and the newly opened Laugh Factory on Times Square, have nights devoted to Latino, black or gay humor, but no major club — yet — has a regular Conservative Comedy Night or Liberal Laugh Party. (That said, there are a few irregularly scheduled shows at alternative clubs or bars aimed at liberal-leaning audiences, like Mr. Blakeman's or the comedy shows that are part of Concerts for Change, which gives money to the Kerry campaign.) A fan of political comedy looking for a fix is left to wander the streets looking for yuks. Or below the streets, as was the case on Sunday night at the Comedy Cellar in Greenwich Village.

Buffoons in the Basement

The Cellar is one of the city's most dependable comedy spots, with a steady roster of professional comics and decent-to-packed crowds most days. (This is important; there are few things worse than sitting in an empty room with a comedian. Just ask their wives.) On this particular night, a quiet Sunday in football season, the downstairs was surprisingly vibrant, with about 75 people spread out around the room.

Five comics were scheduled for the 9 p.m. show, and most touched on the campaign at least once. Dov Davidoff, an unkempt stream-of-consciousness type, pondered the growing national deficit.

"They say it's going to be $7 trillion, but I don't think Bush even believes that's a real number," Mr. Davidoff said. "He's, like: `$7 trillion, $7 billion, $7 gazillion, get out of my office. Oh yeah, and call me Sheriff.' "

Sherrod Small, the M.C., also got on the bandwagon, chiding visitors to the recent Republican National Convention. "Those are the white people who white people call white people," said Mr. Small, who is black.

Then, near the end of the night, Bill Clinton showed up.

Well, technically it was the comedian Darrell Hammond, he of "Saturday Night Live" fame, a man whose imitation of the former president is so dead-on it is difficult to separate the two in your mind. Mr. Hammond, who had dropped in unannounced with a Yankees cap on his head, took the stage and promptly started a pretty good imitation of the current president and his use of the word terror.

"I like the way he says it: `Tear-ah!' " Mr. Hammond said, going into his Bush imitation: " `I don't need the O or the R to protect America!' "

The crowd howled as Mr. Hammond continued to riff on Mr. Bush. But for all the laughs at the president's expense, the news wasn't good for Mr. Kerry, either, as Mr. Hammond soon found out.

"You like John Kerry?" he asked in a segue. There was only a smattering of applause.

"You like Bush?" he followed. Silence.

Mr. Hammond, perhaps sensing his routine dying in front of his eyes, went back to the one politician he knew they liked and he knew he knew.

"Clinton," Mr. Hammond started, "is like a lover . . ."

And just like that, the audience was laughing again.

Upper West Side Yuks

There are two major uptown clubs: Standup NY, on the Upper West Side, and the Comic Strip Live, on the Upper East Side. Dangerfield's, at First Avenue and 61st Street, is apparently popular on weekends despite a décor (little red lanterns, low booths, black velvet) that the comic Andy Campbell says resembles "a Spanish funeral home."

A couple of visits last week to the Standup on West 78th Street, a functional gray-on-gray room in the heart of a famed enclave of liberalism, found almost no political comics. (The salsa with chips looked good, though.) The Comic Strip proved a little more rewarding.

The Comic Strip, which has been around since 1976, follows the standard club aesthetic: brick walls, ambitious air-conditioning, small tables. Many comics use the Strip as a place to hone material for television appearances; you can usually find several huddled at the bar or in the front booths writing jokes.

Tuesday was no exception, with a steady stream of pros performing for a die-hard crowd of about 30, including groups from Australia and Britain, all of which made — to use the lingo — a tough room.

None of which seemed to bother Ted Alexandro, a casually surly Queens-based comic, who plunged into a highly political set even though few in the crowd were eligible to vote.

"Prior to the war, the president said our intelligence was `darn good,' " Mr. Alexandro said. "Darn good? I mean, how long is it till this guy compares life to a box of chocolates?"

And off he went, comparing Mr. Bush to Forrest Gump and Vice President Cheney to the dead man in "Weekend at Bernie's" and suggesting that maybe Florida had somehow angered the electoral gods. "I'm not saying they deserved it," Mr. Alexandro said, referring to the state's miserable string of storms. "But maybe they'll count the votes a little closer this time."

After his 10 minutes, Mr. Alexandro, 35, said his comedy had grown increasingly political during the Bush administration but was not always appreciated. After a recent gig at the Borgata casino in Atlantic City, he said, the manager approached him to say he had received several angry phone calls from people offended by his talking badly about the president.

Not that he intends to stop. "He's just an easier target," he said. "And I have a more visceral reaction to him."

Taking Aim at Canada

Wednesday brought a visit to Laugh Factory, one of a few new comedy clubs that opened this year. (Another is the Laugh Lounge, a nicely apportioned, if slightly underfed, place on Essex Street in the Lower East Side.)

The Laugh Factory, modeled on the successful Los Angeles original, is in the old Show World space on West 42nd Street and still bears hallmarks — red velvet, floor-to-ceiling mirrors, the occasional stale odor — of that famed sex emporium.

On Wednesday the host of the comedy show was Wendy Williams, the self-proclaimed "Queen of Radio" from WBLS-FM, who was using the opportunity to promote her new book relentlessly. From the actual comics, there were few political jokes, unless you count neighborhood shout-outs as political.

"How many people here from Brooklyn?" said Ken Black, the M.C. "You're from Utica and Church? That's not Brooklyn. That's the Caribbean." (Then again, all politics are local.)

There were more jabs on tap at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, which is technically an alternative hot spot but actually programs more comedy — and draws bigger crowds — than some so-called mainstream clubs. Wednesday night there means a free show, usually a showcase for young comics on the rise.

This Wednesday that list included Dean Obeidallah, a Palestinian-American comic, who suggested that the Democrats dump Mr. Kerry for a stronger, more popular candidate: William Hung, the off-key cult balladeer from "American Idol."

"It's a weird time to be an Arab-American," he continued. "It's strange being referred to as a militant, gunman or terrorist. Or on good days, as an alleged militant, gunman or terrorist."

The U.C.B. comics notwithstanding, at the "New Talent" lineup at Caroline's on Monday night, many comedians seemed less secure with political stuff. Typical was this, from an unknown comic who will remain so to protect the guilty.

"The president has said he will attack any country with weapons of mass destruction," the comic said. "What about Canada? Have you seen their geese?"

Rimshot?

But for old-timers like Jackie Mason, politics are still bread and butter. Mr. Mason devoted a solid 25 minutes to returning again and again to Mr. Kerry's quibbling and Mr. Bush's bravado, getting bigger and bigger laughs.

At one point, however, he seemed to get serious about the president.

"All the jokes I make about him, I think he's doing a fantastic job defending us from terrorism," he said. "He knows what we're fighting for."

He paused, and then: "He just doesn't know the exact reason why."

Now that deserves a rimshot.

[johnny]

Or even better... a rimjob.

Sorry, i'll reset my brain now.