Jonathan Katz: Professional Humorist

by John Delery

Stand-up comedian Jonathan Katz is not a doctor, but he played one on Comedy Central for six seasons. Now the wise and witty Dr. Katz has left his couch long enough to record his debut album.

By John Delery

For the price of admission and two drinks, audiences at comedy clubs receive the nonrefundable gift of laughter and some bonus prizes: the answers to some of life’s mysteries from uncommonly wise guys.… OK, smart asses.

After all, only comedians realize that “Do these pants make me look fat?” is a trap, not a harmless question. And when does life begin, you wonder? “After the second cup of coffee,” says Jonathan Katz, spouting an amusing theory that scientists can dispute but probably never disprove.

A caffiend himself, Katz’s percolating comic mind is responsible for Caffeinated, his debut CD from Stand Up! Records released after almost 25 years in this funny business. Just when you think you know where his performance is going, it veers in one of three directions: silly, cerebral or somewhat sinister.

“I’m a silly person,” Katz says sitting in his home in Newton, Mass., where he lives with his wife (“We met at a séance,” he says on his album. “I was regular, she was a medium”) and his youngest of two daughters. “I’m also maudlin and morose. I can be serious…for about 30 seconds a day.”

The comic artist in Katz, best known as the voice of Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist on Comedy Central from 1995 until 1999 – season two of six is now available on DVD – molds jokes from Play-Doh, it seems. Katz, who’s 60, hardly ever acts his age onstage.

“I can’t hold my liquor in the winter,” he announces about halfway through Caffeinated. “I’m pretty sure it’s the mittens. A bad joke, but a funny image,” Katz resumes without even pausing to pick himself off the stage after a verbal pratfall. When a joke dies, he has the resuscitation skills of a paramedic.

“I have a really dirty mind,” Katz confesses, sounding less like a lech and more like a nerdy kid hoping to impress a new friend, because when Katz, a subversive but gentle comedian, slides a sex joke into his act, it’s like listening to Mr. Rogers whisper a dirty joke at a dinner party: surprising and surprisingly hilarious.

Join us as Punchline Magazine explores what’s brewing in the wonderfully warped mind of this contemporary comedy legend.

Your joke timing has always set you apart from other comics. What’s more important— the joke or the delivery?
I don’t know. I think there are some people who can’t make even a great joke succeed because they’re not good at telling jokes. And on the other hand, there are some people that take a joke that’s not that good and make it work, because their delivery is that good.

I’ll give you an example. My friend Brian Kiley is a brilliant joke writer and a very good comedian. He’s been writing for Conan for the last few years. And we would get together every week over lunch and exchange jokes with each other and try out new jokes. And he gave me a joke once because he didn’t think he could make it work. This is the joke: He said, ‘My uncle died penniless last week. Had all them dimes.’

Now, he’s written many brilliant jokes, and that is not one of them. But I was still grateful because it came from him, and I think it might be fun to tell on stage because it’s such a bad joke. One of my jokes of his that I really like is: ‘I just bought a house with one-and-a-half bathrooms and that’s really because sometimes you just want to wash your leg.’

Anyway, I’ll let you get back to asking questions.

No, that’s good. I prefer laughing to asking questions. What I most like about your comedy is that it’s silly. And that seems to be what’s missing lately. Anger seems to be a primary emotion in comedy these days. But you just still do flat-out silly humor.
I was wondering about this. I’m doing Conan in a couple of weeks. And I was wondering if I should tell him that ‘I had my torso removed last week, which was just preemptive. So this actually is an artificial torso. It belonged to a young man named Roger who was in a car accident and left only his head and his legs.’ That’s just a stupid joke. It’s silly. I think that’s in a whole other category of silly.

But is that conscious?
No, I don’t come to a decision. I think anybody who knows me, including various shrinks, would say that I’m a silly guy. Being my shrink is really a thankless job, because I would give her one straight answer and then three jokes. I’d be giving away such great material on this shrink, and then she’d send me a bill. I’ve really had very perverse relationships with many psychiatrists in my life.

It’s interesting that beyond the silliness, you have a cerebral and sinister side.
Yeah, I think I have a very dark sense of humor. And also I have, like most men, I think, a really dirty mind. ‘Dirty mind’ is such an old expression. Lenny Bruce has dispelled the whole notion of dirty words, unless it was George Carlin. Well, maybe it was both of them. But I guess you could say the world of sex and gender cracks me up.

But it doesn’t come across that way. I think of Robert Schimmel when it comes to that type of comedy. His whole act is about sex— it’s almost pornographic. But you do it very subtly. Why do you hold back?

I hold back because I have a wife and daughters. But so does Robert Schimmel.

Do you try out jokes on your wife and kids?
I do tell jokes to my wife and kids. But my daughters insist I’m not funny, both of them.

Well, that’s their job.
Yeah. And my wife is so unpredictable about what’s going to strike her as funny. I never know. I’m always surprised when she laughs. I’m not surprised when she doesn’t laugh, because my timing with her is not great. But she works very hard, my wife. When she comes home, she may not want to hear my new joke. She may not want to listen to this thing I’ve edited downstairs. I’ll say, ‘This is from my new radio show,’ which doesn’t really exist.

My wife and [youngest] daughter will come home at the end of the day. My daughter is 15 and my wife is in her 50s. And I say, ‘Listen, I had Bob Dylan on my radio show. And they both say, ‘You do know you don’t really have a radio show, don’t you?’ And of course, they’re right, but it doesn’t stop me from doing an interview with Bob Dylan.

What is this show? Where can we hear it?
Right now it’s at my house— or on the World Wide Web at JonathanKatz.com. It’s called Hey, We’re Back. And I only call it that because I like saying that. There are three or four segments on the Web. I keep making them, because I like doing it. I like editing audio.

Why did you wait so long to put out a CD? Why do it now?
I’ve always liked to document my work. And I think that with the release of the Dr. Katz DVDs and the amount of press that’s generating, it seemed like the right time. And also I don’t travel. I don’t do clubs and live engagements anymore, because, among other things, I have [multiple sclerosis]. But I do travel a fair amount. I do some club work, and I do love to perform in front of a live audience. But I don’t think that’s as practical now as it once was. I also like to keep an eye on my daughter. Her picture is inside the CD. She’s the one who’s pouring me the cup of coffee.

How old is your other daughter?
My other daughter is 24 and she lives in Philadelphia with her boyfriend who will kill you if you even look at her funny.

Do you wear blinders when you visit?
Nah. I’m thrilled that somebody in our family is sexually active.

So what you say on your CD is all true?
It’s all true.

About renewing your vows of celibacy?
Yeah. Sad but true. Marriage takes a toll. And it’s also an incredibly wonderful thing. I’m a big fan of it and I really like the safety net that we provide for our daughters. And I like being part of a marriage. I play the role of the husband. We’re celebrating our 25th anniversary on the day the CD is released.

Does you wife mind being talked about in your act?I think she’s used to it.
I think it was a little hard at first, but she knows that it’s not her, that it’s some caricature of her.

You’ve said that anybody could write a book but that naming it is the tough part. So, does that go for CDs as well? Why did you name your new album Caffeinated.

That was actually my wife’s idea. I’ve often said coffee is my reason for living. It’s not true, obviously, but I do love the stuff. I drink a lot of it.

And there’s a song called “Caffeine,” on the album. It’s huge. I think those are the only good lyrics I’ve ever written. I’ve written 40 mediocre songs. They’re not bad. But they’re definitely not good.

Were you a musician at some point?
Yeah. I was a musician before I got into comedy. I had a band called Katz And Jammers in New York. I played rhythm guitar and I sang lead. And I wrote most of the original songs, not all of them. And after the band, I worked solo as a musician. But, then I noticed when I started singing people started talking. So I started talking more and singing less, which is how I made the transition to comedy.

When I met my wife I was the leader of Katz And Jammers. I met her on Christmas day in 1979. She didn’t know it was Christmas. I didn’t know it was 1979.

So you knew each other before you were a comedian?
Yeah. She was my first and only groupie. You really only need one good groupie. Are there journalism groupies? There must be.

If there are, I haven’t found them.
Well, I was sad to discover that when I started doing comedy, my groupies where these middle-aged Jewish people who’d come see me perform and then invite me over for soup. Not exactly what I had in mind. But I’m probably better off.

So when did you make that transition from music to comedy?
I would say 1983. I did a set at the Improv. And the producer of the Letterman show was there. He actually didn’t come to see me. He came to see some guy from San Francisco who was late. So he saw me by accident. I was still using the guitar in my act at that point. And he said, ‘Jeez, you’d be great on our show, but you’d have to lose the guitar.’ So let me see, I think it was in June of 1985 that I made my debut on that show.

And that led to fame and fortune and Dr. Katz?
Yeah, I guess so. I also had another career that’s connected to David Mamet who was my best friend in college. He was nice enough to give me a writing credit for the movie, The House of Games. And I appear in many of his movies. So that’s also helped me out in show business enormously, because he’s so successful. He, too, is an incredibly silly guy. Really silly.

Really? Because most of his movies are very serious.
He seems like he’s pretty intense and serious, but he’s also very silly. A couple years back, if somebody said to his kids, ‘Nice to meet you’ he trained them to grab the guy’s knee and say, ‘Mice to eat you.’ That’s the tip of the iceberg with silly with that guy.

Is that what comedy should be? Silly?
Should be? I don’t know. I don’t know what it should be. It should be whatever strikes you as funny. I think about this time I got on stage at Carolines, and Jack Rollins was in the audience. He’s every comedian’s dream manager. And he came up to me after the show, and he said, ‘You should come to my office tomorrow and we should talk.’

So I went there the next day, and he said, ‘You know, Jon, what you need is a manager.’ And then he said, ‘But who’s going to manage you?’ And he wasn’t trying to be mean, he was just being pragmatic. Because my act is from the ‘60s and this was the ‘80s. He knew that what I was doing was a little too gentle for the public. But we remained friends. He was the first manager I never had.

Why can’t comedy be gentle?
Well, because I think people who come to the comedy clubs want to be titillated in some way. Or humiliated, or have their friends humiliated. That’s more like it. They want to see their friends embarrassed. One of my favorite comics is Dom Irrera, who I’ve described as a truly disgusting human being. And he’s not. He’s this very obscene poet. He uses words better than anybody I know.

I know his act very well, too.
He’s not a first date comedian.

Are you?
I think I could be. I think Dr. Katz, actually, is a show to which people fell in love. Which makes me pretty happy and proud.

Why do you think they fell in love with that show?
Well, I’ve heard that from people. Like, ‘I used to watch it with my boyfriend. We got married. We wanted you to officiate our wedding.’ Now that part I made up, because I can’t really do that. Because I was just a make believe, cartoon character. Dr. Katz is make believe. And Jon Katz can’t officiate at a wedding because he’s not licensed. Though, it is kind of nice to feel like I’ve played a role in someone else’s romance.

Are you amazed at the afterlife of Dr. Katz?
Yeah, it’s pretty amazing to think it had such an impact on so many people. And I get e-mails on the Website from people in places like Yugoslavia, or Brazil, saying how it changed their life, and asking why they don’t see it on TV anymore. I mean, really, it had kind of an international impact. And one of the reasons it succeeded is this friendship I have with Tom Snyder, which is really the second stage of my career in comedy.

I was lucky enough to meet Tom, who was the co-creator of Dr. Katz, who made his living creating educational software. But he happens to be a hysterically funny guy, who had a comedy habit. And we discovered we lived near each other, and we started working together.

Do you like your niche in comedy? Do you like being the gentle butsomewhat titillating comic?

Yeah. And I also like the word ‘subversive.’ Because I think there’s something subversive about my comedy. My parents were subversive. I’m not sure what it is that I’d like to subvert.

Language is one thing you subvert.
Also people’s false sense of safety and security in their lives. Or in their marriage and their relationships to other people. I kind of like messing around with that a little bit, like what it means to be a women or a man.

Talk about messing with people’s sense of safety in life. Didn’t you mess with your own sense of safety when you decided to enter comedy full time? There’s no guarantee that you’ll succeed in comedy.
No, but you can always redefine the word ‘succeed.’ You can always say, ‘Hey, if I make one person laugh today, I’m a success.’ Now you can’t really convince your landlord that you’re a success, even though you can’t pay him. You can’t convince your parents that you’re a success because you made one person laugh. But you might be able to convince that one person. Now I’m just being an idiot.

When you were growing up, what did you foresee you’d be doing, if anything?
I didn’t think I would make a living in comedy.

Do you think if you were just starting today, you’d have to change your act to survive?
No, I actually think this is kind of a good time to be doing what I do. I think there’s a new audience out there with an appetite for my kind of comedy. I glean this from the popularity of guys like David Cross, who is a younger, harsher version of me.

He’s very clever and I think if he had to make the deal to give up the word ‘fuck,’ he could still succeed on stage. It’s his way of saying, ‘Hey, I’m one of you,’ to the audience. I don’t blame him for that. He’s one of them, but he’s also so unique. Jon Benjamin is another guy who inspires me. He’s a brilliantly funny guy.

And my biggest influence as a comedian is a guy you probably never heard of named Ronnie Shakes, who was on The Tonight Show for many years, and then died at the age of, I don’t know, in his early 40s, jogging one day. He was the only comedian who didn’t drink or do drugs. He just had a bad heart.

What was it about his comedy that inspired you?
Oh, God, he was just great. He was a wordsmith. His most famous joke is, ‘I’ve been in therapy for 12 years, and yesterday my shrink said something to me that brought tears to my eyes. No hable ingles.’ For years, I wanted to do his act, to do a one-man show as Ronnie Shakes. But no one offered to pay me to do it. But I do have every joke he’s ever written on my computer.

Rita Rudner is also a wordsmith. In fact, she and I would travel together and she would help me refine a joke to the point where it worked much better. She’s a very efficient writer.

It seems to be that the comedy today is more about personality than the joke— like having a larger than life personality is the shortcut to fame. The comedians you mention consciously arrange words in a funny way.
But very often they would do that in front of an audience. Ronnie would go up on stage with a clipboard and a list of jokes. And he would tell them. He used the club like a gymnasium. If a joke didn’t work, he might try that same joke again 10 minutes later with a different punch line. I didn’t have that kind of courage, but I would record my act every night and listen to it.

Do you like the writing process? Do you like sitting down with just you, a pen, a pad and your imagination?
No.

That’s emphatic.
I like it when someone’s paying me to write something. Then I can get really excited about it. I like writing dialogue. Writing dialogue is easier than writing jokes. Because at some point the characters live in your head, at least. Writing jokes, for me, is almost a compulsion. And I don’t do it when I’m sitting down to write a joke.

I write a joke when I’m talking to someone on the phone, or driving and on my cell phone. I push one button and I can record… not while I’m talking on the phone. But if I wasn’t talking, I could record a joke, and I do that a lot. And I talk to myself.

Jonathan Katz’s new album, Caffeinated is now out on Stand Up! Records. For more information, check out www.jonathankatz.com.

Greg Proops: Joke Book

by Jonathan Wexler

Though he’s most renowned for his time on the hit improv show Whose Line Is It Anyway? stand-up comedian Greg Proops proves with his new album Joke Book that, given time to think about his lines, he’s even funnier.

Joke Book is 65 minutes of completely offensive fun. His comedy is highly intelligent – big words and fictitious phrases abound – yet is accessible and most always delivers a ton of chuckles.

At the start of the album, Proops spends a lot of time conveying personal stories and exploring regionalisms. It was recorded at Minneapolis’ Acme Comedy Company, so of course, the locals take a lickin’, don’ t ya know? Proops, a Californian, says the weather in Minnesota – cold and harsh – shows God must be really pissed at its inhabitants.

And he takes some swings at other locales, like when he ponders why Floridians choose to live in a land where prehistoric reptiles roam, and why, of all drugs, meth is so popular in a paradise like Hawaii.

The first half of Joke Book is good for sure but Proops really hits his stride in the latter part of the album; you get the feeling that this is why he really came. The material here is overwhelmingly political and decidedly anti-Bush.

In “Immigration,” he ridicules white supremacists’ ironic efforts to stop the flow of “gardeners and busboys” at the Mexican border into states with Spanish names. In “Women’s Organs,” he insists that if men were the ones who got pregnant, there would be abortion clinics on every corner.

The man whom Esquire recently dubbed “the funniest man in Los Angeles” rips the president in “The Decider,” and the veep in “Cheney at the Hunt,” a riotous 12-minute tirade about how the cardiac case shot his friend Harry Whittington with birdshot in the torso, neck and face and got away with it.

These tracks also get a boost from tension, which is always good for a laugh. While the traditionally liberal Minnesota crowd clearly agrees with Proops’ politics, you can sense the discomfort at some of his less politically correct assertions, like in “Barry Bonds” when he boasts his passive approval of steroid use in sports with lines like, “I worship his commanding black thighs.”

It’s also unclear whether the crowd loves the frequent dropping of F-bombs. But more times than not, they end up laughing— even when it’s in spite of themselves.

Proops sets himself apart from his stand-up comedy counterparts with his multi-punch combo. He throws them like Ali, with lightning quickness, no doubt developed through years of improv.

As with the champ, the knockdown laugh is a foregone conclusion. He primes the crowd with smaller, tangential mini-jokes so well that by the end of his main jokes, and ultimately by the conclusion of his set, the audience is already quite acclimated to laughing.

Matt Wohlfarth (aka Buzz Nutley): The ABC’s of Stand-up Comedy

by Jonathan Wexler

Matt Wohlfarth’s ABC’s of Stand-Up Comedy is a must read for any touring comedian not yet world-famous. In just under one-hundred pages, this e-book (found here) covers everything from how to write jokes and perform sets to finding clean bathrooms— and does it succinctly and brilliantly.

Wohlfarth, better known as Buzz Nutley, is a veteran comic and writer who’s worked with Jay Leno, Jon Stewart and Mitch Hedberg. Clearly, he knows his way around a guffaw. Just as importantly, Wohlfarth knows the business side of being a jokester. He fuses it all into a hodgepodge of vital information gleaned from personal experiences.
“Think of this book as a reference guide to comedy that isn’t weighed down by filler,” Matt writes in the preface. He promises that buying it will “save you some time, some missteps and most importantly, some headaches in your comedy journey.”

Wohlfarth keeps that promise.

He packs in tons of advice, humor and encouragement for an admittedly tough career. Though organized like a glossary, it’s not dry or top-heavy. The comedian’s conversational style and passion for the medium make it a fun and easy read.

There’s no narrative – after the introduction ABC’s jumps right into the A’s – but it still can be read front to back. Found under ‘A’, for example, are tips to take Acting lessons, to be able to Adapt material instantly, and to always be Aware of comedy potential.
Pearls of wisdom abound, forming a sort of “Zen of Comedy.” On bombing: “I learned more from my bombs than I learned from my killer sets.” On confidence: “Trust that you have all of the goods inside of you.” There’s even a passage on finding your Inner Tigger.

These are the most touching parts of Wohlfarth’s writing, doubling as life advice and lending massive amounts of strength when times are tough. His good nature shines through here; he honestly wants up-and-comers to benefit from his travails.

But, Matt intones, it’s not all about the laughs. “As oxymoronic as it sounds, comedy is a serious business.” He writes that the ratio is about 90-10 business to comedy; organization and consistency can be more important than hilarity.
He notes that the early part of a career is “much more marketing than actual stand-up,” and hammers the point that an aspiring comic must create his/her own breaks. You might get discovered by chance, but it’s not bloody likely. You’d better work it, girl.

Practical aspects of being a comedian are also given attention. Your car should function properly and, Wohlfarth says, join a car club. Also: Buy a dictionary, write everything down and take care of your physical and mental health.
ABC’s only weakness is the flipside of its biggest strength: it’s based on Matt’s life and what he’s done to clear the hurdles in his comedic path. Therefore, he generally only offers one solution to any given problem, that being the one he used. But by giving the reader enough tools for a life in comedy, the book has made any situation graspable.

— Jonathan Wexler

Maria Bamford: How to Win!

by John Delery

Mom, Dad and bad bosses remain in Maria Bamford’s crosshairs. But on How to Win!, her new CD, the mild and crazy comedian hunts bigger game, too. Instead of harpooning her victims, though, Bamford, a mannerly Minnesotan, uses biting sarcasm to attack the pomposity, inequity and idiocy gnawing at her.

“Anyone here work for a big corporation?” she asks the audience at the Cap City Comedy Club in Austin, Texas. “Anyone here part of the problem?”

On this follow-up to her Burning Bridges Tour CD, Bamford is slightly less personal and much more political. Her signature soft voice barely conceals the vitriol she harbors for her hardheaded, hard-hearted targets.

Bamford jabs at George W. Bush and then expertly cuts down soulless companies and clueless executives with the needles she injects into her act. She especially frowns upon a Mickey Mouse organization for it’s alternately smiley-face and cutthroat approach to business.

She decries the extreme-makeover culture that equates changing someone’s hair color with changing the world. Bamford comically crusades on behalf of the underpaid and the overlooked, meaning sweatshop workers and temps, the slaves who drive the economy but walk to work because they can’t afford bus fare.
One segment of the 50-minute performance painfully yet hilariously captures the all-too-familiar corporate ritual: cake for everyone— well, everyone except the temp, the office outcast.

While Bamford raises her voice and some issues on How to Win!, she still loves Mom, Dad and America — it’s just that she finds them a bit mortifying and frightening.

Sarah Silverman: Born to Offend

by Dylan P. Gadino

Stand-up comedian Sarah Silverman has made a career of being hilariously offensive on stage. Now with her new Comedy Central show, The Sarah Silverman Program, she’s turning the traditional scripted comedy on its ear… in part, by pooping her pants at brunch, and then singing about it… in a white dress… in slow motion… on a beach, as waves nip at her feet.

By Dylan P. Gadino

In the premiere episode of her new Comedy Central show, stand-up comedian Sarah Silverman, hits a bottle of orange NyQuil-esque sleepy-time medicine real hard— so hard that when she’s out for a cruise she starts hallucinating. She’s thrown into a cartoon world; her car sprouts eyes, gains the ability to fly and an effeminate Loch Ness Monster pays her the ultimate compliment: “You look really thin. You should eat something.”

This is, quite literally, a trippy sequence. But even when Silverman’s character isn’t soaked in viscous, over-the-counter hallucinogens, The Sarah Silverman Program plays out much like an acid trip. The plots – of the first two episodes, anyway – are flimsy, hastily shift focus and act as little more than a vague strip of cohesion on which Silverman’s jokes are pricked to life.

If The Sarah Silverman Program even once tried to be a normal sitcom, the preceding words would wreak of a poor review. Thankfully, Silverman’s single camera, no-live-audience show is far from normal and in fact, deftly pokes fun at all-too-earnest and zany sitcoms. Most importantly, there’s very little unfunny about what she’s created. The proof: 1.8 million viewers tuned into the premiere.

As is the case with her stand-up, however – see her masterful 2005 concert film Jesus is Magic – you need to be ok laughing at things you know you shouldn’t be laughing at. But that’s been Silverman’s M.O. from the get-go.

The 36-year-old comic grew up in Bedford, NH the youngest of four girls – her sister Laura plays her sister on the show – and was raised by her drama coach mother and her dad, the owner of a furniture store who not only taught but also encouraged Silverman to swear. Her parents split when she was seven and she hasn’t been shy about the effects: As a teen she was plagued with panic attacks and wet the bed well into high school.

Obsessed with Steve Martin since middle school, Silverman did stand-up for the first time when she was 17, moved to New York City when she was 18 and dropped out of New York University after a year; by the time she was 22, she was a writer and featured player on Saturday Night Live. She lasted one season before getting the axe.

Upon her dismissal, Silverman moved to Los Angeles – where she currently lives – and made an impressive dent in the Hollywood comedy scene. Her name grew and she was invited to appear on late-night television. In fact, Silverman went on Late Night with Conan O’Brien in 2001; there, she told a joke, gleefully using the word “Chinks.” The result? The Media Action Network for Asian Americans staged a protest, O’Brien apologized and Silverman suddenly was on the country’s consciousness.

Since then, in addition to becoming a nationally headlining stand-up comic, Silverman has popped up in a slew of films (most recently School for Scoundrels, Rent, School of Rock) and TV shows like the short-lived Fox sitcom Greg the Bunny, Frasier and Crank Yankers. Now that she’s armed with her own show, chances are good we’ll be seeing a lot more of the comedienne. So we thought now would be a good time to catch up with Silverman and ask her some questions— 17 to be exact.

In the first episode of The Sarah Silverman Program you and your sister bond over a show called Cookie Party. You don’t really describe what the show is about on the episode, but if Cookie Party really existed, what type of show would it be?
We imagined it as a public access show hosted by a character Rob Schrab [who works as a writer, producer and director on The Sarah Silverman Program] does named Minnie Coffee. She’s a kind of Southern belle transvestite and she just presents the viewer with about 10 different kinds of cookies each week and the viewer votes for the one they like best. But you don’t ever see any of that— though maybe you will in the future.

In the second episode, your character says that she stubbed her vagina. Could you explain how one might stub one’s vagina?
Very carefully.

Most journalists never fail to mention your looks. They especially love talking about your perfect white teeth and your great hair. How important are your looks in relation to your stand-up work?
I don’t know, but hopefully not much because I feel I’m about to hit the wall there.

Do you ever get tired of people making issue of your looks?
Why the fuck would I get tired of that? I can’t even believe it. Plus, I take it with a grain of salt. I know that any comment about my looks is followed by an unsaid, ‘for a Jew.’

At least three writers have mentioned as an aside that you have a “pretty mouth,” which almost sounds kind of creepy. How would you react if a guy came up to you in a bar and said, “You have a pretty mouth?”
I’m thrilled by any compliments. What kind of asshole do you think I am? Many years ago it was summer and I was walking on the street in New York City and some guys on the street whistled. I whipped my head back at them, annoyed, and they said, ‘Not you.’ Since then I appreciate anything I can get.

To say your stand-up has raised more than a few eyebrows and got some social critics talking throughout your career would be a huge understatement. How important is it to be thought of as a political and cultural commentator?
It’s not important to me at all. It’s great when I can hit on stuff that matters to people or makes them see something in a different way, but I don’t rule out juvenility. Whatever makes me laugh I’m happy to bring on stage.

You talk a lot about your religion in your act. How has being a Jewish comic helped your career?
I don’t know. I run Hollywood?

Ok, has it hurt your career at all?
I don’t know. But I do think that people see me as one thing and I’m not. There are a lot of uncreative people in the business of show, cupcake face.

What is it that sets you apart from other comedians?
I have two vaginas.

How has being an outspoken, female comic affected your romantic life? Are guys generally intimidated by you?
Oh Jeez, I don’t know! Anyway, I’m a one-man woman.

By the way, who’s funnier— you or boyfriend, Jimmy Kimmel?
We’re different. He’s a flat-out genius. His brain works faster in a minute than mine works in a day. Dick.

Your comedy has been analyzed a great deal. Is it really worth all the heady discussion?
I don’t think it’s worth it. I think deconstructing comedy is fine if you don’t mind it killing the funny. [ed. Note: Punchline Magazine: Killing the Funny One Article at a Time].

Do you ever stress out about whom you may offend with your stand-up material?
I don’t stress out. If I feel too shitty to say something, I don’t. But if it’s too funny and I want to do it, I do it. I never want to offend, but some people are such pussies.

Would you ever give up stand-up in favor of a career in movies and TV?
I don’t see any reason why you have to give up one for the other. It’s like giving up being a Sagittarius so that I can have black hair.

What makes you laugh?
I don’t know. No one category. I like silly weird stuff. I know that’s not much of an answer but it’s just not an intellectual choice what you laugh at. It’s more physical, don’t you think?

How would you describe the current state of contemporary stand-up comedy?
I think we’re living in a great time for comedy. If you look, you’ll find some of the best comics in years working right now: Zach Galifianakis, Paul F. Tompkins, Jon Glaser, Vernon Chatman, Todd Glass, Tig Notaro. I could go on and on. But I won’t.

Is this Sarah Silverman’s year?
It’s Sarah Silverman’s QUEER.

The Sarah Silverman Program is on Thursdays at 10:30 p.m. on Comedy Central. For more information, check out www.comedycentral.com.

Jim Norton: Comedy’s Loveable Degenerate

by Dylan P. Gadino

A true bastion of free speech, stand-up comedian Jim Norton – the man on Opie and Anthony’s third mic – knows his way around a groan inducing joke — not to mention the ‘casual encounters’ section on Craig’s List.






Photos by Heidi Kikel for Punchline Magazine

When we arrive at his apartment, comedian Jim Norton is sitting at his computer, intently studying the script for the 2007 AVN Awards – that’s the Oscars of the adult film world – in which he’s prepping to co-host with porn star Jessica Drake. By the time you read this, that glorious event will be recent history. When he gets up, it’s hard to miss the obvious: the formerly squishy comic is now quite trim— something he attributes to a run-in with a cranky masseuse (see interview below) and spending hours every week beating the hell out of the heavy bag at the gym.

You’d never guess that a guy who makes much of his living telling rooms full of strangers about his poor self image as in, “I should be milked into a bucket and then raped with a bottle rocket; I’m a little fat-titted nothing” and his sexual deviancy (“I would gladly lay back and let Britney Spears shit in my mouth… and then hand her a thousand dollars and wipe my own cum off my stomach”**) would keep such a tidy place. But he does. Though it’s not lit right now, there’s even a cinnamon sugar-scented candle next to his couch.

His walls are sparingly adorned with a few things. There’s a framed photo of Richard Pryor and one of Norton with the band KISS in makeup— though it’s not the real Ace Frehley in the photo, which is a bummer since Ace is his favorite member. “If he were dead, I’d get a picture of me and his fucking corpse,” Norton says.

Then there’s a mounted, signed vinyl copy of Black Sabbath’s 1973 album Sabbath Bloody Sabbath given to Norton by a fan. Finally – the crown jewel of his collection – next to his front door, there’s a giant photo of a smiling Norton in a tux with all the members of Black Sabbath at their induction ceremony to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “I look like a fucking dope in that photo,” he says. Typical Norton. Despite all his success, he’s always shitting on himself.

Throughout his 17-year career, the 38-year-old New Jersey native has brought self-deprecating humor to a whole new and frighteningly graphic level. It’s probably his way of staying grounded since right now he has every reason to be a snobby prick.

Between his daily morning gig manning the third mic at the wildly popular Opie & Anthony Show on both XM and terrestrial radio, headlining theaters and comedy clubs across the country, appearing in his own HBO One Night Stand and scoring a starring role on Lucky Louie (the underappreciated and prematurely canceled HBO sitcom created by stand-up comedian Louis CK) Norton has become one of the nation’s most visible and beloved comics.

Due to that undeniable fact, Punchline Magazine has been keeping a close eye on Norton. We were there over the summer at a stop on the Opie & Anthony Traveling Virus tour, where Norton took to a golf cart and mooned the masses in the parking lot. We saw him accept the “most original comic” prize at the Cringe Humor awards at Carolines in New York City.

We were there when he headlined for 2,000 people at the Hammerstein Ballroom during the New York Comedy Festival and again at more than a few of his during-the-week Comedy Cellar appearances, where he stays in stage-shape and sometimes bombs.

After watching Norton on stage and spending some time with him – it’s also evident on his two CDs, Yellow Discipline and Trinkets I Own Made from Gorilla Hands – it becomes obvious that it’s not all dick jokes. Those do figure somewhat prominently into his act, his repertoire is actually quite vast and much smarter than he’d ever admit out loud.
So now, because the world needs more Norton, we present to you the Jim Norton Punchline Magazine interview. Enjoy.

There’s lots of comics out there that say shocking things. Obviously that’s not the only part of the formula to being funny. You do these things, but you really bring something unique to that. What do you think it is about your comedy that makes such a connection with your fans?
I think they know I’m being honest. I really don’t think you can shock people with comedy. I mean if people can handle the news, what some dumbbell is saying with a microphone shouldn’t be shocking, it should just be really funny.

And I’m really honest about what I think is going to be funny. I think that’s the key. You can’t go out there and try to shock people like, hey man, just go out and say ‘pussy fart’ and expect people to recoil and then think you’re really funny. You know what I mean? You have to be funny as well. If you want to be shocking, that’s one thing, but you have to have good jokes. And I think my fans know that I’m being honest with them or as honest as I can be. And I’m always trying to bring new material out. I think they know I’m not trying to shock them, I’m trying to make them laugh.

When you’re honest on stage, it’s usually about how you hate yourself. It’s pretty common for comedians to be self-deprecating. But you’ve brought that self-deprecating quality to an entirely new level.
Everything is exaggerated a little bit, but the self-doubt and the self-loathing is certainly a big part of my psyche. And to me, it’s almost like I’m taking these things that bother me the most and I’m just exposing them onstage— like my feelings about myself. I am insecure. I really do hate looking in the mirror sometimes. And I think a lot of people feel that way, but I’ve just decided to talk about it.

And I think people are uncomfortable with it, but I think people laugh because they relate to it. Anyone who’s honest with themselves relates to the self-hatred or the self-doubt a little bit. So those are just the things that my mind says to me, you know? You’re worthless, you’re a fat little pig, terrible– you know what I mean? So it’s like I’m just trying to repeat them. I’m just kind of repeating what I’ve heard from myself.

And you feel your audience can connect with those types of feelings?
Oh, the ones that are there to see me absolutely can. I know they can. Guys that are Jim Norton fans, they’re all messes and they relate to the fact that I feel the exact same way about myself. I think they know it’s real. What I’m telling them is real. Even though I know it’s not rational, I know it’s a lie that my mind is telling me this stuff, but it doesn’t matter. It’s still the things that you hear. I know it’s bullshit. I know I’m a nice guy, and I’m OK looking, I’m average. But it doesn’t matter, because that’s not what my mind tells me.

Is there a sense of ‘Let me say these things before people judge me for these things anyway?’
Yeah, a lot of times I think if I expose it, you can’t hurt me with it. I think that’s a big thing. If I feel that if I put it out there, well then you can’t come at me with it because I’ve already brought it to your attention. It’s just a protective thing, I suppose.

You once said something like, ‘Stand-up is all that keeps me from picking up a rifle and shooting people.’ What did you mean by that?
It’s a way of getting out my dislike for people and my hatred for the way things are in a healthy, therapeutic way. It’s like emotionally vomiting. You’re telling people the things you hate about them. And half the people I’m talking about are in the audience. You’re getting it off your chest. It feels good to get it off your chest. It feels good to just say what you want to say and to have people know how you feel. There’s something really great about that. Now they know how I feel. Whether it changes things or not doesn’t matter, because at least I’ve said it.

In your act, you talk a lot about things that make you angry. What aggravates you the most?
Political correctness.

Yeah?
Yeah, and this notion that comedians are supposed to obey the courtesies of society. People expect you to be funny and yet they have all these little asterisks they put next to what you said. Or they want you to be funny and yet not offensive. They don’t want you to violate their political ideologies, their religious ideologies. So I think that’s the thing I hate more than anything— even more than the Religious Right and the way they crush free speech. I hate political correctness. I think it really hurts comedy. And I think that people under the age of 25 are so caught up in it and they just don’t realize what dumb fucking robots they are.

The younger generation is worse than older people?
College students are the worst. They think they’re just a fucking bright oasis of free speech, and they’re the most restrictive little douche bags in the country. They’re the worst; they really are. They used to be something different, and now they’re horrible. I mean it’s really easy to trash Bush and the Republicans. Yeah, we know they’re bad, OK. The fucking Left to me has been so fucking horrible. But the college kids hide behind hate speech. If you make fun of gay people, it’s hate speech. They’re just fucking phonies. They’re as phony as the fucking Religious Right.

So it seems like the more liberal-minded younger people are, the more frightened they are of doing and saying things that could offend?
Well, most of them have superiority complexes. They don’t like to say that they do. These little white kids, they really do feel like blacks are children and minorities need to be coddled, and they’re afraid that if a comic is saying something racist, that it’s a reflection on them and the way they really feel. They’re just fucking fraudulent. They make me sick. And they can be that way, that’s fine. Sometimes colleges will even give you a list of things you can’t talk about when you perform at their fucking school.

Really?
Yeah, dude, you don’t understand how bad they are. And all colleges don’t do this. I’m not saying all of them do. But it’s come up, where they say ‘You can’t make fun of this and you can’t make fun of that. We really would rather you don’t do that.’ The military is doing that in some cases. It’s just disgusting— disgusting.

Before you get there do they talk to you, or is it the day of the show?
Both. I do so few colleges now that I kind of don’t have to deal with that anymore. They know what they’re getting when I come.

They’re booking you for a reason.
Yeah, I would never agree to that process now. But it’s just disgusting how if a black Muslim was speaking there, they would never dare try to tell him what he could or couldn’t say. But if a comic is performing, they think it’s OK to try and tell them what they should talk about and what they shouldn’t. If a musician were performing there, they would never, ever tell him what content he can and cannot cover. And with comedy, they feel like their creative input is needed. Bullshit. This is not just colleges. It’s all audiences.

Right. People will more likely look at art on canvas or music as real art and they don’t see stand-up like that.
Exactly. And meanwhile, stand-ups can’t live on the same song for 20 fucking years. You know what I mean? Jokes are contingent upon catching you off-guard to some degree. So the key to fucking getting what I need out of an audience is to catch them off-guard, for them not to see the punch line coming, or to hit them as a surprise, to a certain degree. Musicians don’t have that. So not only do they give fucking musicians complete creative freedom, but they allow musicians to hang on the same X amount of songs forever. And I’m not shitting on musicians, I’m just shitting on the way fucking audiences have this thing with comedians.

As far as keeping people on their toes with your jokes, do you have a strict writing regimen where you sit down and try to focus on using that technique or any other techniques?
I wish I did, bro. My regimen is I’m onstage every night. So a lot of times I’ll think of a concept I want to talk about— like I just started seeing somebody, and I’m like I want to talk about this fight we had or whatever. But then I won’t even allow myself to think too much about it before I go on. I’ll just think it through onstage at the Comedy Cellar [in New York City]. It’s really weird.

To me, creatively, that’s the way I work. That’s like my writing sessions now— the four nights a week I’m out at the Cellar, always trying material. And then on the other three nights I go out and do road gigs. Like I’ll go out and make my living. I mean, I’ll think of things and write them down, but I work best when I’m just comfortable on stage.

What would you say is the worst part about doing stand-up comedy?
The fact that every night, you’re starting with a clean slate. From one set to the other – and now I’ll be dramatic – you’re great or you suck. The other night at Stand-Up New York, I’m working on this five-minute set, I’m timing it out and seeing if it flows. And it killed at Stand-Up New York. And then I went to the Cellar and I died a horrible death. And that’s the way it is for us.

I’m sure musicians have that, too, and actors have that, too, but the response you want from stand-up is so completely direct. You’re yanking an emotion out of people, and it’s immediately apparent if you’re getting what you want. Yes or no, they laugh, they don’t laugh. So you immediately have fucking feedback. So you’ll get this immediate great feedback, and then 10 minutes later you go downtown, with the same material, and get much different feedback.

So you always have this sense of doubt with stuff, like no matter how many good shows you have in a row, if you have one or two dog shit sets in a row, you’re like ‘I am a fucking unfunny bag of vomit. I fucking suck.’ It’s because that low self-esteem is always there just waiting for a fucking chance to actually pop out and run the show, always. And it’s always waiting for an opportunity to just make you miserable.

When did you know you wanted to do stand-up full time?
I was 12. I saw Richard Pryor. I kind of knew that’s what I wanted to do, you know what I mean? I was always funny. I made them laugh in class. So when I saw him doing it, I’m like, oh, that’s where you go with this. I was 12 years old. I wish I had a more original answer, but every comic says Pryor.

When you talk about it in your act, you make it sound like you definitely didn’t have a blast as a child. Did you have a rough childhood?
My parents were nice. They took really good care of me. I was kind of spoiled. I was just a little douche, you know? I didn’t have to go to the school of hard knocks. I mean, my sexual addiction started very young, but that was my own fault. My mother and father were normal folks.

Your sexual addiction?
Yeah. I was a dirty little boy.

How so?
Just anyone I could get to suck my dick, I’d get to suck my dick. Second grade. I was really awful.

Second grade?
Yeah, I was a dirty boy.

How did that happen?
I don’t know. There must have been something in the water, or one really good molester. Because there was a bunch of us in the neighborhood who were fuckin’ involved in it, you know?

That young?
Yeah. First grade, second grade, third grade.

Wow.
I know. I still remember the first time a girl put her ass in my face. Her name was Janice. She was a year older than me. I still remember how that ass felt on my face. It was lovely. It changed my life.

But your family is pretty normal and your parents are still together?
Still living, still married. I have a sister and a nephew. I don’t know what happened. I fucking just went off. I discovered prostitution and alcohol. I always liked to run away and escape to feel better, you know?

What were you escaping? Because it sounds like you had a pretty decent upbringing.
Low self-esteem. It was all low self-esteem, self-hatred, self-loathing shit. Every fucking comedian has it. We’re all a bunch of self-hating little jack-offs. I attempted suicide when I was like a senior in high school for attention. And I went to rehab like a little douche bag.

What did you go to rehab for?
Alcohol and drugs. Then I got sober when I was 18.

So you were a senior in high school when you attempted suicide?
Yeah. I was 18. It wasn’t a real attempt though.

How did you attempt it?
Wrist cutting. It was that phony, fucking ‘notice me,’ shit. I was a little melodramatic asshole.

At that point were you an unpopular guy?
No. People liked me because I was funny, but I was kind of weird. Kind of a white homeboy before it was fashionable. I was a real suburban embarrassment.

Were your parents supportive when you decided to do stand-up?
Yeah. I was three years sober. They were just happy I was doing something constructive. They’ve always been real supportive. That’s why I love my parents. A lot of guys have shit families.

Would you ever have kids yourself?
I’m not going to fucking have children, you know what I mean? They’re just awful. I don’t like any of them. I don’t know why anybody would want that little fucking shitbox in the house. I want nothing to do with kids. They’re awful. That’s why I’d never be a good pedophile, because I just fucking hate them so much. I hate to fucking have to talk to them. I hate them.

You currently have a girlfriend now, right?
Yeah. A very nice girl. I’m just hoping I don’t fuck it up, you know? I’ve liked her for a long time. She’s a nice girl. It’s fucking creepy. I don’t know what to do.

So you’re completely reformed?
Yeah. I mean, let’s hope so. I don’t think she’ll piss on me, so I’ve got to be nice.

You grew up in Jersey, right?
Yeah. In central New Jersey, North Brunswick and Edison. Then I moved to North Jersey. I moved out of my parent’s house when I was 30. I was a fucking homebody. I moved in with [comedian] Jim Florentine. He would have threesomes, and I’d get to watch. I watched him getting blown one time. I was hiding behind the bathroom door jerking off, and I got caught. It kind of wrecked things. I’m a pig. I love Florentine.

When you started stand-up, what other jobs were you doing?
Warehouse work. I drove a forklift. I did all kinds of warehouse and dog shit work. It was awful. It’s hard work, man. Then I just started doing open mics when I was 21. I’m very lucky to still be doing comedy.

I would imagine that you probably have a good amount of strange fans.
Yeah.

Have they done any bizarre things in your presence?
No but they instant message a lot, and they send a lot of weird e-mails. They offer to let me fuck their wives. That’s a very weird offer. But I’m accessible, so there’s no thrill in stalking me, really, because they know where I am.

They have your instant message address?
Yeah. I give it out on the air. I have a private one too. They know where to find me on MySpace and the Comedy Cellar. There’s no thrill in shooting me, I don’t think, because I’m not like the President, you know?
I’d never become an elitist as a comedian with the public. I can’t. I’m lucky. I’ve been on both sides. I have fans, and also I am a fan of a lot of people. So I know what it’s like to get blown off and shit. It hurts and it makes you feel bad. So I try real hard not to do it. I have a good relationship with them. I’m not scared of them. I don’t care how nuts they are. And some of them are motherfuckin’ nuts.

Talk to me a little bit about Opie and Anthony, and how the show has affected your stand-up career.
It made me a draw. I’m such a scumbag on that show, and they let me be one. It’s great. They never ask me to be a nice guy. I fuckin’ talk about piss, fucking hookers and they’re like ‘All right, fine.’ They never once asked me not to talk about something. So I attract people who are of a similar ilk.

That’s why my fucking fans are weirdos, because they find that shit amusing. I realize we’re kind of specific. We try to be like pop culture-savvy, I guess to appeal to a little more broad of an audience, but once you start getting into rape and pedophile stuff, you lose a certain percentage of distinguished listeners. But Opie and Anthony have been very good to me.

It seems like they’re very flexible, and they really encourage your stand-up, and they’re always kind of promoting you.
Yeah, they’re very good, man. I was loyal to them when we got kicked off the air. I never went to competitors, or people that they hated. They took good care of me, so I never turned on them either. There’s not that much loyalty in show business. It’s nice to have fucking people who are loyal to you. They’ve been good to me.

They seem like decent guys.
Oh, they’re great. But they have their moments. (laughs)

What happened with Lucky Louie? Did HBO cite any reasons why they canceled the show?
They never gave me one. I think it was a bad move for them. We had a good amount of viewers. I loved doing Lucky Louie. I just didn’t like the critics. I hate critics. I fucking hate them.

It seems a lot of critics are in it to be negative.
They’re elitist cunts. They are. They’re elitist cunts. They’re fucking phony motherfuckers. That’s why I hate them. I have no respect for them.

What’s an average day like for Jim Norton?
I get up at 5:15 a.m. I walk in the studio door at like five to six, sometimes when the opening music is playing. I’m home by noon, usually. I’ll usually look at Craig’s List and jerk off for a few hours. It’s awful. I try to sleep, work out, come and do a stand-up spot at night and I’m usually in bed by one in the morning, if possible. I don’t get much sleep.

It doesn’t sound like it.
No, man, it’s bad. My schedule is awful. If I didn’t jerk off, I’d get six hours, eight hours a night. I just can’t keep my hand off my dick. I’m like a fucking chimp.

But you’re working out. I noticed you look a lot slimmer.
Yeah, man. I’ve been trying. I had a message therapist in LA. She didn’t want to jerk me off. And then she kind of implied that she wasn’t attracted to me. And I looked at my mushy body and I’m like yeah, I’ve got to do some work.

So that was it?
Yeah. She was awful. She was an ex-fat chick, getting back at men. I hated her. She was an ex fatty. She just wanted to turn a guy down.

You’re run-in with this masseuse is what inspired you?
Yeah. Like this ex-fat pig wanted $1,000 to jerk me off.

A thousand?
I would have given her $30. It’s like, ‘Fucking eat some more S’mores. Chew on that, fatso. Have a Mallomar, you fat cunt.’

For more information on Jim Norton, check out www.eatabullet.com and www.foundrymusic.com.

**This joke is from a few years ago when Britney Spears wasn’t such a skank. It’s unclear whether Jim Norton still feels this way. Jim?

Josh Blue: Comedy Afflicted

by Jessica Agi

Punchline Magazine presents the year’s greatest stand-up underdog story: After his Last Comic Standing victory, the wise-beyond-his years comedian releases his first live concert film, is booked into next summer and preps for a lifetime in the laugh business.

By Jessica Agi

Since winning the latest season of Last Comic Standing, and ultimately scoring himself a half-hour stand-up show on Bravo and a development deal with NBC, Josh Blue has rarely stopped moving.

It’s a Friday afternoon and Blue just landed in Florida for a headlining spot he’s doing that evening. But the sky-weary yet chipper stand-up comedian is happy to talk. “I work pretty much every day of the week and I’m in a different city every night, which is really crazy,” the 28-year-old comic says. “I’ve just been working all the time. [Last Comic] changed my life, because now I’m really famous,” he jokes. “It’s cool that so many people want to see what I have to say, but it’s also a head trip.”

Calling it a “head trip” is a huge understatement. Blue was diagnosed with cerebral palsy when he was one year old. CP is a neurological disorder that permanently affects body movement and muscle coordination. Normally, it’s no laughing matter, but for Blue, his disability has been the backbone for a lot of his jokes. Stand-up, known to rip the honesty from performers’ mouths, makes perfect sense to Blue, who has no reservations when talking about his disability onstage or off.

“The thing is, it’s all I’ve ever known, you know? Cerebral palsy. If I didn’t have palsy, I’d just be some other geeky white guy,” he says. “Now at least I have something to talk about.” Blue is so honest it’s painful sometimes. So it’s no surprise that he admires Chris Rock, a comedian known for his ‘no BS’ approach.

“I just think he’s very educated, a very smart man—the stuff he talks about, if you think about it, should not be funny but the way he puts it makes you not only laugh but also think about the situation.”

Blue says his own stand-up style is self-deprecating. “Some of my friends call it ‘reverse teasing’ because I make fun of myself,” he explains. “I make fun of you by making fun of myself by making fun of you if that makes any sense at all.”
Sad but true, people are bound to stop and look, “so I want to give them something to stare at,” he says. “No one would deliberately be a jerk about someone with a disability, but you know if they are— fuck them. If people have negative things to say, usually it’s just that they’re ignorant. You’re afraid of what you don’t understand.”

This attitude came shining through for Blue even when his career in stand-up was fledgling. Though he started hitting the country’s stages in earnest in 1999, Blue first did stand-up as a sophomore at Evergreen State College, a liberal arts school in Washington. He used the confidence he gained from those informal shows to start at open mics. During his last year of school, he was doing time every week at a local coffee shop.

It’s been an upward climb ever since. Two years before he beat out 11 other contestants on Last Comic Standing, Blue won the Bass Ale New Talent Contest as well as $10,000 for being tops at the Las Vegas Comedy Festival’s Royal Flush Comedy Competition. He’s also just released his first live concert film 7 More Days in the Tank! and is already booked to headline clubs across the country well into the summer of 2007.

Wise beyond his years and continually active, Blue has never let his disability ground him from doing much of anything— even off the comedy stage. He’s an avid soccer player and in fact went to Athens, Greece to play as a member of the 2004 US Paralympic soccer team. He’s also been known to play the occasional slide guitar for Denver band Zebra Junction as well as being an enthusiastic painter and sculptor.

“I had a big art show at a gallery opening four days after I won Last Comic Standing,” he says, adding that the gallery experience was one of his most rewarding accomplishments even with all his newfound fame.

“Things are still good, but it definitely takes getting used to,” Blue says, “Like you’re on a date and somebody comes at you, like ‘Hey man, can I get your autograph?’ It’s hard to keep her feeling special ‘cause all these people want my attention so much. It’s a weird dilemma to be in.”

OUT OF AFRICA
Blue is no stranger to adjusting to ever-changing life. He was born in the central African nation of Cameroon where his French professor father, Walt was teaching English in the small rural country. While he left when he was very young, he returned to Africa when he was 15 and has been to the continent four times since.

“The last time I was in Africa I was doing an internship,” he says of his time at the Dakar Zoo in Senegal. “I’ve been attacked by more animals than most people know the names of. The cool thing about Senegal is that I knew if I got the internship there, the laws and rules were a little more lenient. So the first day I got there at the internship, they gave me a broom and put me in a tiger cage to clean it— holy shit!”
But since the summer of 2001, when Blue took a job at an Easter Seals camp, the comedian has called Denver, CO home. By 2002, he quit a steady paycheck – this time working with developmentally disabled adults – to pursue stand-up full time.

He and his family get good mileage out of their passports. His brother lives in Korea, and one of his sisters lives in Mexico, while the other sister and his parents live in Minnesota. Perhaps its that Midwest culture that keeps Blue out of the sometimes toxic Hollywood scene. Don’t get him wrong— he’s still good friends with fellow Last Comic Standing contestants, it’s just that his aspirations lie beyond the stand-up stage.

“There’s a ton of stuff on my plate. I’d like to be in movies, write a sitcom, and maybe direct eventually,” he says. “I have a book that I’d like to publish. I started writing it in college; just a bunch of short stories about my life. I gotta work more on it. And I’d like to have a big house out in the woods somewhere and raise some kids.”

Blue continues to entertain and inspire comedians, comedy fans as well as those living with disabilities. “With comedy, the only way you know you’re good at it, or to figure it out, is to do it—you have to try it and see what happens,” he says. “The way I learned comedy is just by watching other people—watching many other comics, see what you like and what you don’t like. As for living with a disability, watch as much comedy as you can. Don’t take things too seriously. I won’t ask for help but I’m not afraid to ask for help. There’s a fine line between asking for too much help and just being stubborn.”

Blue is no doubt a brave man. He uses something that stops so many others as fuel for success. He has every right to be on cloud nine, but has somehow stayed grounded throughout it all. It makes sense that when asked about his biggest fear, nothing comes to mind: “I know when to be afraid of situations and I know when not to be.”

For more information on Josh, visit www.joshblue.com. His new concert film 7 More Days in the Tank! is available exclusively at CinemaNow.