Steve Trevino: Breaking the Mold

by Alana Grelyak

Having shattered ties with former mentor Carlos Mencia, stand-up comedian Steve Trevino is gaining momentum on his own, playing to packed clubs and earning himself a hefty fan base the old fashioned way — by busting his ass

Interview and photos by Alana Grelyak

Stand-up comedian Steve Trevino wants to be known as just that: a stand-up comedian. His truthful and often biting approach to comedy will either leave you in hysterics or make you wonder what could have possibly happened to him to make him so angry — especially with women. He had a huge break when he became a writer on Comedy Central’s Mind of Mencia.

But recently, Trevino has broken away from the influences of Mencia in order to build for himself a career devoid of any second-party connections. He doesn’t even have a personal publicist. Here’s what Trevino told Punchline Magazine — among other things — about his recent travels, his thoughts on the opposite sex and his attraction to midgets.

You seem very angry with women in a lot of your material. It’s almost misogynistic. Is there
a reason for it?
[Laughs] Misogynistic.

Uh-huh.
You know, it’s funny you said that because some women take it as, “Wow he’s making fun of us; that’s very funny. And you’re right there are one or two women in a month that will come up to me and go, “What is your problem? What do you have against women?” And I go, “You know, my mother and my father got a divorce when I was very young, and my mother gave me away to my father, so I’m sure that psychologically somewhere that’s probably where it comes from.”

My act is also talking about women that are “that way.” You know what I mean? And even though I generalize women to all be “that way,” I know that they’re all not that way, but it’s my opinion and my view, so there’s no wrong way, you know what I mean? It’s not a fact. It’s an opinion.

So it’s your opinion that they’re all that way? Or it’s your opinion that they’re all not that way?
Both, you know. But in my act you would get that they’re all that way. But this is the kinda stuff that I’m talking about. The comedy that I was doing four years ago would have never sparked a conversation like this. People would say, “Hey you’re funny. You’re great. You’re a big party animal” Now conversations like this come up with my comedy where people say “Wow, you make me feel like this” Or, “You made me think of this.” Or, “I think you’re misogynistic.” You know what I’m saying? And I like that about my comedy now, that it gets people a little worked up. People come up to me and go, “Oh my god, you have a camera in my house. You described my wife to a tee. You said things I’ve been wanting to say.” So that to me is more important than just being funny.

Would you say then that most of your material comes from your life and from everybody’s lives around you? Like if you had to give a percentage?
I would say that like 70 percent of it comes from my life and the other 30 percent is observations of friends, of paying attention, of listening to stories, of people telling me “Hey, this is what I went through and this is how it was for me,” and just me observing that. Right now I’m doing a joke about how I feel about David Hasselhoff’s daughter filming her father drunk.

What made you get started in stand-up?
I don’t know. I had a passion for stand-up comedy as a child. Almost since the second grade I was getting on stage and doing stand-up. I never wanted to do anything else. I did what I had to do between high school, and now and it’s all I wanted to do. And they kept calling me — I don’t know how I got from there to here, you know? I just got onstage to do what I did and tried to be funny, and it worked out.

How would you describe your comedy?
The last four years I went from talking about family and talking about my crazy life growing up, and it evolved because I remember comedians would tell me, “You know you don’t really have nothing to talk about because you haven’t lived enough.” And now it’s evolved into this frustration with women. So my comedy has become more real and more truthful, as opposed to “Hey, let me talk about how drunk I’m going to get tomorrow or how drunk I’ve been.” Now it’s more observations on human behavior.

What kind of fans would you say you attract?
If you ask the Improv, they would tell you that I attract the Latino crowd, which is not at all happening. If you ask somebody else, they might say I appeal to college kids. And then if you look at my audience, they’ree mainly 25 to 35. My act is completely different when I do a college. The things I talk about, most college kids have never even experienced or don’t understand the way I think. I did a gig in Los Angeles for a fraternity, and I did a whole thing about how life is all about stories, how stories are so important. And one kid was like, “Oh, so and so has a great story. Wait until you hear this story, it’s so great.” And then he tells this story and I’m like, “Wow, that? That’s a big story for you guys? That’s nothing; let me tell you a story.”

And then I told them my story and their jaws were on the floor because they were like. “Oh my god, I can’t believe you did all that.” It’s hard for me to relate to college kids. It’s amazing to me how many old people — I’m talking about 65, 70 and up — come up to me and go, “Oh my god, you speak the truth. Or, “I’m so happy to have seen you. You’re very very talented.”

What is one of the crazy on-the-road things you’ve done?
I don’t even know where to begin, I don’t think I even want some of this stuff on paper anymore.

What kinds of things did you do before you started in stand-up for a job?
I did everything. I did construction to waiting tables to bartending to working the door. Right out of high school I got a sales job working in radio, which I’m really thankful for because it taught me the advertising aspect, the power of radio and the power of getting your name out there. So I think a lot of the things that I did help me get where I am now.

You play a lot of shows in the Southwest. Is there a reason for that?
My following was built on the road, and it was built through opening up for Carlos Mencia. And now I’m now doing all the places he did. It’s just hard in this market because they pigeonhole you. They say since Trevino is Latino, let’s put him in the Southwest, where all the Latinos are. My comedy is for everybody. I don’t speak Spanish in my act. I don’t make a scene about being Latino or being Mexican. My act is for everybody: black, white, Jewish, Latino, whoever. I’m trying to start going up North and doing well, you know?

Do you think being put in the Latino market is actually hurting you?
I hate to say it, but yeah. Let’s take George Lopez and Carlos Mencia. People say, “Oh well, you’re lucky because you’re Latino and there aren’t that many Latino comics.” That’s true, but at the same time, how many famous Latino comedians do we know? And as of six years ago, there was nobody but Paul Rodriguez. And now George Lopez’s show was just canceled and Carlos Mencia has a show. So literally there’s one Latino on TV as of right now. So you’re telling me in a country where the No. 1 race is going to be Latino in the next five years, there’s [only] one Latino comedian on TV.

You’re involved with Carlos’ show, aren’t you?
Well, not too much anymore. I help out Carlos here and there. I just did a sketch not too long ago but I’m really trying to break away from Mencia and trying to do my own thing, and, thank God, it’s really been working out.

What were you doing for him?
I wrote for him, and I was in some of the sketches. And then Carlos and I just kind of grew apart I started doing my own thing and he was doing his own thing, and we went into two different directions. Plus, I wanted my own career; I wanted to be my own guy.

Does it have to do with the whole joke-thievery issue?
My separation from Mencia?

Yeah.
No. I can honestly say that it has nothing to do with that. It was actually before that all happened, and I just think that I got too big for the nest. I was too grown to be around and it was time for me to move on and get my own career.

Did you want to make any comment on the joke-thief issue?
I think that both of them [Mencia and Joe Rogan] are pretty sad. Two millionaires creating problems for themselves. I don’t have time to worry about what Joe Rogan is doing or what Carlos Mencia is doing. It’s hard enough to write and create your own stuff, much less me worry about what the hell Carlos Mencia is doing, or anybody else for that matter.

And if somebody steals my joke, I don’t have time to go confront them. I just move on and write a new joke. [Laughing] It’s like. “Fine, take it. I don’t give a shit. I don’t have time to argue with you or fight with you.” Is it wrong? Sure. Should people steal material? No. But I don’t pay attention to many comics.
I do my thing and go home.

Tell me something your fans don’t know about you.
[Laughing] Something my fans don’t know about me. I pretty much will tell you anything on stage, and I keep it pretty honest. But they probably don’t know that one of my favorite TV shows is Little People, Big World.

Why?
Number one, I love midgets. That’s one of the reasons. But the other reason is I admire the father. I admire his ability to overcome obstacles and still have a positive attitude.

Can we back that up a second, and can you tell me how you “love” midgets?
Oh, how I love midgets? I wanna hug them! I wanna hug them and love them. If me and whoever I marry have a midget, I’ll high-five her and be like. “Babe, we did it! We did it! That’s what I wanted.

So you want to love a midget or you want to LOVE a midget?
Oh, I’ll have sex with a midget. I just find them so fascinating and cute. So that’s what drew me to the show — the midget aspect of it. And after watching it, I really started to admire the father on the show.

So, you’re not married, right?
No.

Single?
Yes.

Are you unhappy about being single?
I’m very happy. I love doing what I do and in order to keep my career moving forward, I have to work all the time. So that is my main motivation right now. I don’t worry about much else, except for work.

What do your fans have to look forward to coming up in the next few months?
We’re actually trying to get an hour special for me — whether it be Comedy Central or HBO or Showtime — but that’ll be happening in the next months. And just a lot of live performances. Getting out there on the road and building an audience the real way — not on Last Comic Standing. There will be a DVD, as well. We’re probably going to film our own special and sell it to a network.

Who’s “we”?

Me, my manager, my agents. We’re trying to get the word out. I just want to do it the right way; I want to build my audience like a stand-up comedian. I want to be known as a stand-up comedian. I don’t want to be known as “That Guy on that TV show” or  The Guy from that movie.” There are a lot of comedians on TV that you would never know are comedians, and I don’t want to be that. I want to be the stand-up comedian that’s on TV. I want people to see me on TV and go, “He’s a stand-up comedian, and you can go watch him live.”

For more information, check out www.stevetrevino.net.

Paul Mecurio: How I Single-handedly Stopped a Train and Lived

by Paul Mecurio

Superman may have been more powerful than a locomotive, but the Man of Steel never did what I did last week — single-handedly stop Amtrak.

How did I pull off this act of heroism? Was I like that mythical woman everyone always talks about who lifted a car off her son, saving his life?

Well, no. I accomplished this superhuman feat by getting into an argument with the conductor. Not quite in the same category as Superman battling Lex Luthor, but it was close.

I actually do think of myself as a superhero. I routinely get frustrated with the people who provide service to us, the retail consumer. Specifically, I get angry with the ones who are rude, incompetent or indifferent. In other words, all of them.

I’m the guy who always has to speak to the manager. In my head, I’m Consumer Man, fighting on behalf of oppressed consumers the world over (it’s a thankless job but someone has to do it). In my wife’s head, I’m crazy. But she didn’t stop an Amtrak train. I did.

I was taking a train from New York to Maryland to go on a five-day sailing trip. It was really a drinking trip with sailing thrown in. Actually, it was a getting seasick trip with sailing thrown in. I took Amtrak thinking it would be more convenient than flying. That and I wanted to arrive to my destination late.

It was a 6:20 p.m. train, the height of rush hour. I was tired. I was stressed about getting a seat (I really wanted two seats so I could spread out — and mainly so I did not have to interact with anyone). Consumer Man was fatigued from battling injustices; he did not have time for Northeast Corridor small talk.

I boarded one of the rear cars, full of anticipation and anxiety. Pay dirt! Two empty seats! I set about filling one with people repellent: backpack, food, newspapers, and a cord of firewood. I began working on my laptop.

Within minutes the conductor came through. In a tone that Consumer Man didn’t like, he announced this train was full. All empty seats would have to be cleared. I laughed. Surely a Good Samaritan such as Consumer Man would be exempt from this requirement. I ignored his request and kept working.

Several minutes later the same conductor returned and bellowed at me, “I told you five minutes ago to CLEAR THIS SEAT! Clear it RIGHT NOW or I will CLEAR IT FOR YOU!”

Where did he get the nerve to talk to me in so many capital letters? Was he empowered by his mesh, air-flow brimmed hat, comfortable yet authoritative? Or by his jaunty change belt?

I politely responded, “Excuse me?” He repeated his tirade, only louder. Others in nearby seats looked on in disbelief that he was talking to a fellow consumer this way — either that or at the fact that I had not yet cleared my seat. I like to think it was the former.

I shot back, “Excuse me, I’m a paying customer and I don’t appreciate being spoken to that way.”

He said, “Oh yeah, how would you like me to respond?”

“Don’t talk to me like I’m a six year-old child.”

He hurled more abrasive comments at which point I called him a “punk” and demanded to speak to the supervisor. He refused. Well played! This had never happened before. Refusal of the supervisor request was Consumer Man’s kryptonite.

I told the conductor I was going to report him and demanded to know his name. Again, he refused. (Note: When you plan to report someone and need his name to do so, don’t tell him the part about reporting him first.)

He walked away and returned moments later to tell me he wasn’ taking my ticket. “I’m throwing you off this train for being disruptive. I’m calling the cops in Newark.”

Is this how it would all end for Consumer Man? In a hail of bullets over an empty seat? While I could stop a train, I was pretty sure I couldn’t stop a bullet. That’s where Superman has one up on Consumer Man.

The conductor called the cops on his walkie-talkie as we were pulling into the station. Consumer Man had to think fast. I had to take the offensive. I made a beeline toward the front of the train, looking for another conductor.

As I walked through the train I hit the button for the giant electric door to open. As it slid into the wall, my ticket, which was in my hand, got caught between the door and the pocket where the door stores.

Now what? Cops are breathing down my neck and I have no ticket to prove I should even be on this train. The clock was ticking. I wait for the door to open: no ticket. I began to whine, “Oh, no, oh, no.”  Consumer Man was Consumer Baby.

After what was 17 seconds but seemed like 17 years, the door emerged from its pocket again, and there was my ticket, stuck to the side of the door. I grabbed it as I heard the conductor yelling, “Where is he? He ran away!”

I kept moving. I peered out the train door onto the platform and spotted five Newark police officers, waiting for me. Five cops! Consumer Man was really shaking things up. (I felt like Belushi and Aykroyd at the end of The Blues Brothers, if they had been surrounded by five cops instead of five hundred).

Meanwhile, I overheard a woman on her cell phone say, “Hi, it’s me, I’m going to be 15 or 20 minutes late, some jerk is holding up the train, and I think the cops are here for him!”

Wow, I was the jerk! I was notorious and I hadn’t been shot — yet.

No time to revel in my celebrity. Suddenly I spotted another conductor. She was wearing a red tie, as opposed to the standard blue. Red could only mean one thing, royalty. She had to be the head conductor.

I was finally going to speak to the manager! She got onto the platform and was walking at a very fast clip. I ran after her and shouted, “I need to report a rude conductor!” She said, “Sir, I can’t help you right now, I have a problem at the back of the train with some guy.”

“I’m that guy.” She stared at me and walked with me toward the cops.

In my previous life, I was a lawyer. (My mother is still sick about my career change.) I knew I had only minutes to implement my “offense” strategy to lodge doubt in the neutral party’s mind about my accuser and perhaps win a not-guilty verdict. But it wasn’t looking good for Consumer Man.

As we approached the police officers, I spoke loudly while pointing at the conductor, “There he is! This guy is out of control. Officer, can I speak to you for a minute. This guy is abusive.”

As I began to explain the situation to the police officer, the conductor yelled at me again: “This train is leaving, do you want to get on it or not?” I looked at the cop, who shrugged his shoulders. Maybe Amtrak was his usual beat and nothing threw him anymore.

I got back on the train. My head spinning, I returned to my seat and smiled. I was right, he was wrong. If by “right” you mean inconveniencing a train full of people, being chased by a conductor, almost losing my ticket and risking arrest, all over an empty seat.

Yes, even on his day off, Consumer Man fought the good fight and won. I took off my baseball cap and wiped my brow. I looked at the seat next to me. It was empty. I took a beat and rested my cap there. Consumer Man had earned it.

During the two-hour ride that followed, the conductor finally came by and punched my ticket. My hat was still on the seat. He looked at me, looked at the hat and said nothing. Consumers everywhere rejoice! Consumer Man celebrated with an overpriced, warm ham sandwich from the snack car.

As I left the train, the conductor saw me and couldn’t resist a parting shot.

“Thank you,” he said. “I got in trouble with my supervisor. Thanks a lot.”

“No need to thank me,” I said. “Just doing my job.”

For more information, visit www.paulmecurio.com.

All photos by Brian Friedman.

Christopher Titus: All in the Family

by Alana Grelyak

Comedian Christopher Titus has never made a secret of his highly dysfunctional family life. But he’s yet again embraced the hurt and created something incredibly funny and strangely poignant – this time for a new Comedy Central album.

Interview and Photos by Alana Grelyak

Stand-up comedian Christopher Titus has seen a lot. And although he’s well traveled, he hasn’t really had to stray far from his own family or his own home to experience some of the more disturbing — nay, inspirational — episodes of his life, many of which he’s turned into poignant, extended jokes for his stage act — not to mention three-seasons-worth of warped Fox sitcom fun.

In his new Comedy Central double-live album, The Fifth Annual End of the World Tour, Titus as always, lays bare his soul and exposes every last one of his frayed nerves; somehow, he makes it one of the best comedy releases of the year. And with ABC picking up Big Shots — Titus co-stars with Dylan McDermott and Michael Vartan in what has been described as a male-driven  Sex and the City — for its Thursday-night lineup, we’ll thankfully be seeing a lot more of the veteran comic.

Punchline Magazine recently caught up with the 40-year-old native Californian to talk about his unique style of comedy, how he was conceived during revenge sex and how, exactly, he’s just like Bruce Springsteen.

How would you describe your comedy?
Pain, in joke form.

You have a bit about your dad dying on the new album. How do you make pain funny? Doesn’t it bother you?
It does bother me. When I first started doing it, I wrote a bit about my mom’s mental illness years ago. And I remember I was in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. I remember doing it the first night and I was on stage and I was literally half way through the bit and I started tearing up. I started choking up. And I was like. “Oh shit: Dont, don’t, don’t, don’t,  don’t.” And I got through it and then about 10 shows later, I realized it had turned into jokes. It was painful in the sense that I’m aware of it, but it’s not dragging-me-through-the mud painful.

And the new show, when I first started doing stuff about the divorce, when I first got on the stage with it, it was brutally angry. So what’ll happen, the real emotion when I start doing it will always come out. Like, I mean, when I was at the Ontario Improv when I started doing the divorce stuff and people, just the look on their faces was like, “Oh shit, he’s really pissed.” And then about 10 shows later, again, it just started to go away, and I started to figure out the funny of it, and I used the anger as a tool. But, yes, it does really affect me when I start writing it. The good news is the audience is pretty much my therapy. I don’t need a therapist because I have them.

That saves you a lot of money. Actually, you’re probably making money that way.
There you go!

Because of the detail, drama and length of a lot of your bits, it seems obvious that would need to be well-rehearsed. But you pull it off very naturally. Do you consciously set them up that way, or do they just write themselves like that?
Any comic that says that jokes just write themselves is lying. You have to structure things. I want to take the audience up and down, like on like a roller coaster. That’s why when we wrote “Titus,” I hated sitcoms. I hated them, because they’re all half-assed funny. They’re just middle-of-the-road funny. It’s very rare that you find a sitcom that’s laugh-out-loud surprising. So when we wrote Titus, we went for that, and I used to get in a lot of arguments with the writers about the dramatic moments because we’d write them and I’d say, “We need to talk about Matthew Shepard right here or we’d talk about, you know, my niece got molested and we did an episode about that.

Because here’s what happens. If you can make them laugh right after that, they love you for it. I try to do that on stage because it’s so much more interesting than just, joke, joke, joke, joke, joke, you know what I mean? It’s like, Nils Lofgren came to the show, he did guitars for Bruce Springsteen in Phoenix last week. And he said to me, ‘You know you do what Bruce does,’which by the way is a ridiculous complement. He goes, Bruce will take you down and do like “American Skin” or some horrible dark number and bring the audience down to tears, and then he’ll just turn around and do “Drive All Night.” You have a tendency to ride the rhythm like that. And that was pretty cool that Nils Lofgren, who’s played in the E Street Band, compared me to Bruce Springsteen.

That is a good compliment.
Yeah. And one you can’t live up to. But he just said that in the rhythm you take an audience on a ride and I believe that is a comic’s responsibility.

Definitely.
Boy does this sound pretentious. This is the most pretentious interview I’ve ever given. Holy crap.

Maybe it’s me.
Oh no. It’s not your fault. I’m just cocky and a whore.

Did school or formal training play a part in this dramatic approach?
I went to one semester of business law at a community college and the only part that I liked was the standing up and talking part, so I quit. My father always wanted me to be a lawyer my whole life. I started driving to San Francisco every weekend and going to open mics. I mean, not every weekend. I was actually going pretty much Tuesday thru you know – Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Sunday, I would go and do open mics and I did that for a couple years. And I sold shoes to get me through it.

The only time I went to college actually was when I went to the college where Robin Williams learned to act. Not Juilliard, but Marin, before he went to Juilliard. So I studied there for a year, and then, while I was doing comedy in California. And then when I got to LA I had a teacher named Stephen Book. And I did that for five years. And because of that, I would never have gotten Titus. I would never have gotten into drama. It changed my comedy tremendously. Because once I knew how to act, it just made everything better. I can act bits out instead of saying, ‘Hey, ever notice when you see this.’ Now, I can actually tell a story about my dad as my dad telling the story.

That definitely comes through in your comedy.
Well, I do a new bit. I asked my dad to tell me how I was conceived. I wanted one good story. I wanted to see my dad have that far away love look in his eye, and talk about young love. And he tells me this horrible story about how my mom and him had already broken up and he went back to do it one more time just to let her know what she was missing and then she got pregnant with me. So I was actually conceived during revenge sex.

It’s just like, ‘Aww come on. Thanks dad.’ So I was telling that story as me telling it but it wasn’t as funny so I started doing it as my dad telling it, and how brutal it was that he told me. And now it’s hilarious, because he’s telling it. So many comics are afraid of acting classes. ‘I know how to act. I’m a comic.’ No you don’t. You know how to talk. You don’t know how to act. So I realized I didn’t know and that’s why I needed to be trained.

Did they ever make you “be a fairy?”
I looked around for a good acting class. One of the first ones I came to in L.A. was this women teaching this method, Meisner or whatever. They made you do an exercise where they had you lie on the floor of the studio and pretend you were a cup of coffee. You know, I’m not a cup of coffee. Let’s be very clear. It was one of those bullshit acting exercises that doesn’t really do anything for you but it’s just like, ‘Yeah. You were wonderful, I really felt the steam.’ Shut up!

So I started to really hate acting and actors. And then I found Stephen. He’s one of those guys that cuts right to it. He would never say if it was good or bad. He would just look at the classroom and say, ‘Did you believe him?’ Yup. Good. Moving on. ‘Did you believe him?’ No. Not at all. And then we’d talk about that and fix it, but it was never a pat on your back or bullshit acting.

I saw that you have a movie credit for Killer Klowns from Outer Space.
Aw, jeez, it was my first movie experience. And it’s weird. It’s one of those legendary bad, campy, horror films that everybody remembers. Yes. I was in it. And I will not deny it in court.

What role did you play?
It’s like first guy dead. I’m right in the beginning. I’m in the jeep and I’m carrying beer across the street. And I have a couple lines. ‘Wow, check this out!’ I mean it’s just stupid crap and, yeah. Thanks for bringing it up; I also have a Writers Guild nomination without a college degree so, stop it! You’re not talking about that.

I didn’t know that.
It was for Titus. There was an episode of Titus that I wrote and Everybody Loves Raymond beat us out that year, but to be a new writer on the show and to actually get nominated was pretty cool. My dad used to say, ‘I didn’t even know you could write your own name.’ So to get a Writers Guild nomination, it was like, ‘Take that, old man!’

How much of your comedy comes from the truth of your life, if you had to give a percentage?
I would say 90 to 95 percent. The last End of the World tour was basically about the world and being a father so that was kind of my take on like racism and stuff. And this new show’s all about relationships and divorce. The last show was all topical, so it was probably I don’t know 60, 65, 70 percent. This new show is pretty much 100.

Would you say that most of your knowledge you use in your comedy just comes from observation?
My stuff usually comes from life experience. I don’t think I’m smart enough to just make stuff up. [Bill] Cosby is my hero. He would tell these long, twenty-two minute stories about his life that were just hilarious and for whatever reason I grew up on that and that’s what I do. I tell stories about my life. Currently, I’m in a brutal divorce and my new girlfriend is amazing so I’m talking about that. And basically in this new stage show I’m going to fix everybodys’ relationships. Or destroy them.

For more info, check out www.christophertitus.com.

Opie & Anthony: Something Wickedly Funny This Way Comes

by Dylan P. Gadino

By Dylan P. Gadino


On the heels of the enormous success of last year’s Opie and Anthony’s Traveling Virus tour, Gregg “Opie” Hughes, Anthony Cumia and their third mic master, stand-up Jim Norton, will be back this summer to spread the virus in the form of this year’s biggest stand-up comedy tour.

Joining them onstage at each show will be eight to nine-comics, each a friend of the Opie and Anthony radio show. Performers will include Lewis Black, Bob Saget, Stephen Lynch, Carlos Mencia, Louis CK, Bob Kelly and many more. Presented much like an Ozzfest meets R-rated carnival meets freak show, comedy fans should expect to do much more than just laugh.

For further explanation, check out what Opie and Anthony had to say recently when they chatted with Punchline Magazine.

Even though this is your second year doing this, no one else, surprisingly, has hopped on the huge-comedy-tour bandwagon. Why do a tour like this in the first place?
OPIE: A lot of our comedian friends have been doing the show for many, many years. And we thought it was good enough to have them on our show and have them get a little exposure for themselves. But all of a sudden there was some chatter with these guys that they wanted to start getting paid. Well, fuck that, I’m not paying them. So we came up with this idea where we can use them a little more, and they could finally get a payday out of it.

ANTHONY: Another thing is that a lot of radio shows have their listeners but we consider our listeners to be unique. It would be very hard I think for another show to put something like this together and get the impassioned results we do with our crowd. Our listeners are fucking animals. They pretty much turn this thing into a rock event – the tailgating in the parking lots and standing on chairs. It’s just an amazing thing to see. And one of the reasons we put it together is that we have the type of audience that’s really conducive to a show like this.

OPIE: And it’s a good chance for the comedians to showcase their talents in front of a much bigger audience than they’re used to for the most part. The fans completely appreciate what they bring to the show and appreciate their stand-up. It’s a well-behaved crowd. In some cities, we’re doing this in front of 10,000 people, and at times you could hear a pin drop because the audience is really listening to what the comedian is doing up there. It’s unbelievable.

Our radio show’s a lot different too because when comedians come in, its more of a conversation. We pick comedians that are funny. You might say to yourself, Well aren’t all comedians funny? No, absolutely not. They have a funny act, but they’re not funny people. When we go about looking for who we’re going to bring on the show, we look for comedians who are actually funny people, who could be funny in any situation. We hate the comedians who come on the show and we have to set them up with, “I heard you flew in from Vegas” and that leads into a 10-minute Vegas bit. We hate that shit. We’d rather have comedians come on, throw their act out the door and just be funny with us.

Also, we allow these guys to be in the spotlight on our show. A lot of other radio shows are too scared to let anybody else get a bigger laugh than the hosts. We don’t give a shit on our show. We take pleasure in the fact that a Patrice O’Neal, or a Bill Burr or a Bob Kelly can come in and be the funniest guy on the radio that day. We’re fine with that. It seems like an obvious thing, but a lot of radio shows are too insecure to allow that to happen.

Especially now, there’s a lot of politics and a lot of comics calling each other out in the national comedy scene. But you guys are OK having everyone from Larry the Cable Guy to Carlos Mencia, Brian Regan, Dane Cook, Rich Vos and more. A lot of these guys wouldn’t be welcomed on the same radio show.
ANTHONY: We’re just hoping that one of them shoots another one of them on our show.

So it has nothing to do with you liking these guys. You just want something bad to happen live on air?
ANTHONY: Exactly! We want something to happen. It happens in the hip-hop community all the time. We want to be the first people to make it happen in the comedy community.

OPIE: Where there’s laughing going on in the middle of the shooting. How great would that be?

ANTHONY: Comics have their own beef with each other. But it doesn’t really come into play as far as the show’s concerned. If a comic could just come in and hang with our show and bullshit about whatever, that’s cool. And if another one can but, say, these two don’t get along, then obviously we’re not going to throw them on the same show so they could battle it — unless they want to. For the most part, it doesn’t change what we do as far as bringing comics on if a few of them don’t get along. Comedians are all fucking psychopathic assholes anyway.

OPIE: That’s why it’s great to tell them to throw their acts out the window. ‘Cause then you’re going to get some really dark, funny stuff. And we like all sorts of comedy. Some people would be surprised to hear that we do love a Brian Regan or other very clean comics on our show. But it’s all about being funny. We don’t care if its dirty funny, clean funny or anything in between. We just love funny guys.

What’s the most difficult part about putting on a live show of this magnitude?
ANTHONY: We got some great people behind us that are doing the real heavy lifting.

OPIE: Yeah, we’re in some creative meetings trying to come up with things we could do in between the comedians. Or what we want to do in the O&A Village but for the most part we’re in really good hands. We have guys that know how to put on shows.

ANTHONY: I mean obviously, you want to keep things moving. If you get a dead spot during the show, the audience might get restless so you have to have good people behind the scenes that’ll keep things moving along.

Last year, you had a lot of things going on beyond the live stage show — lots of fun and games for the fans to get into in the village, like strippers on stage, crazy videos during the show. What can we expect this year?
OPIE: We’re still trying to figure out some things to do on the stage and things in the village. This year we’re hopefully doing a video confessional booth. We’re going to have people before the show just going in and admitting crazy shit and then hopefully cut that together real fast and play it on the big screen while people file into the venue. And we got the drunk-clown dunking booth, where the guy’s just completely obnoxious.

We’re going to have some great, animated videos that are going to have something to do with the radio show. We tested some out in Vegas, and they went over really well. So we’re going to play those on stage as well.

ANTHONY: We’re looking to do a second-stage karaoke thing, like an open-mic thing where people could sing and degrade themselves in front of a crowd that will do nothing but berate them.

OPIE: We like to get the listeners involved. So the listeners or the pests, who are the real hard-core fans, we give them a booth in the village to do whatever the hell they want. That was a nice surprise last year. So we’re still waiting to see what they’re going to do this year. A lot of times we just make things up as we go along. And it just works.

When we did the show in Cleveland last year, we had some cash to give away. So we did a fatty-pig-fatty contest live on the state to find the fattest woman there. So we had the fattest woman come up on stage and we would give her a buck a pound. We thought that maybe we’d get one brave woman but man, these beasts were marching up the aisles from all directions.

The crowd just went nuts. And we found the winner. I forget how much she weighed, but she was well over 400 pounds. And instead of handing it to her like gentlemen, we threw it up in the air so it went all over the stage and she had to bend down to pick up all the money in front of everyone. We like that sideshow element to the tour.

ANTHONY: There’s a good freak-show element to it. And I think the strippers are back on stage for the audience’s pleasure.

OPIE: We’re hoping to get a few nude fat broads up there.

ANTHONY: Yeah, we need to find fat girls that’ll do a pole dance.

I’m sure you’ll have a few dozen willing to do that.
OPIE: Honestly, we’d like to have some surprises that aren’t in print. Like last year, we dragged Stalker Patty onto the stage [at the Holmdel, N.J. show]. We’re always pulling her chain — wink wink — and so we brought Stalker Patty out onstage, and we wanted to crown her Miss Traveling Virus 2006, and she’s just so gullible for anything.

We had a throne and a tiara and flowers and a sash and we sat her down on the throne and said, “Here’s your Miss Traveling Virus 2006, Stalker Patty.” She was so happy that we were giving her some nice recognition. And that’s when we cued the pig’s blood to fall from about 50 feet above her head just splashing all over her in front of 10,000 people.

Yeah, I gotta say I felt a little bad for her.
OPIE: Well, the funny thing is — and this is why we’re twisted — is that’s the reaction we were going for. We knew people would laugh cause they’re twisted, but we like to make people cringe as well. We’re looking for the I-feel-bad-for-her reaction.

Is there a city you’re looking forward to most this year?
OPIE: Going back to Camden is going to be very interesting because that’s where the now legendary Bill Burr performance happened, where a couple minutes into his act, the crowd started booing, not because he was doing a bad job, just because they were in that type of mood down there. They fucked with two comedians before that and just destroyed them and cut their sets short.

Bill Burr’s like, “Man you ain’t doing that to me.” And he proceeded to use his 15 minutes to just do some of the most amazing improv about Philly and its sports history. It’s on YouTube and has well over a million views, and people are still talking about it. When we mention the Traveling Virus, people bring up the Bill Burr thing. So we’re looking forward to going back to Camden to see what happens this year.

ANTHONY: And Jones Beach, of course. That’s home territory. We’ve seen so many concerts there, so to pop up on the stage will be pretty cool for a Long Island guy.

Anything else you want to tell the kids?
OPIE: We can’t wait to hit your city with this tour.

ANTHONY: It’s gonna be a blast.

To buy tickets to the show, check out www.livenation.com. For more info on the tour and Opie and Anthony check out www.foundrymusic.com and www.myspace.com/virustour.

Geno Bisconte: The Philosopher King

by Jessica Agi

There’s a smile behind each all-encompassing jab New York City comic Geno Bisconte dishes out. It makes us a little worried, actually. But is there cause for concern? ”

By Jessica Agi

Geno Bisconte may not be a household name in the world of comedy, but he has a lot to say, mostly about what stand-up comedy means not only to the entertainment industry but also to society at large. In his new monthly live show, It’s Comedy, People staged at the world-famous Carolines in New York City, he probes some of his favorite comics about the inner workings of their comedic minds. Punchline Magazine recently sat down with Bisconte and did a little probing ourselves.

On stage you definitely hit a lot of themes – lighthearted, disturbing and otherwise. But there’s always a smile on your face. Why?
My act is very edgy; I do a bit about domestic violence— “If I want to have fun, I’ll run into a women’s shelter with a skillet and yell.”Where’s my dinner, bitch?” But then you get women who get mad at it, and when they do, I get so angry. If your husband hits you and you go back to him, I think it’s hilarious. Get the fuck out of there! People are afraid to talk about things like the Holocaust or slavery; I had nothing to do with it. My parents were Catholics, good Catholics — they fucking gave their money to the church. They did that 10 percent thing. Where does it all go now that they’re dead? To pay off a hobbling altar boy in Boston because we thought not talking about it would make it go away.

So what happens when the crowd turns on you?
If they laugh at nine of my jokes and they don’t laugh at the tenth, that’s a compliment. If you’re really proud of your craft, you don’t wanna just be that monkey with the cymbals clapping; you want people to like your jokes. You don’t want the crowd to be a bunch of whores,  like when you say, “Hi,” and they’re like, “Wah, that’s hilarious!” No. When you don’t laugh at that tenth joke, then I know you really liked the other nine. So thank you; I’ll do my job and fix that tenth joke.

My buddy told me there’s two ways to do my act: You can either do it mean — and then I’m just a preachy asshole up there — or mean with a happy edge. So it’s like, “Look, what I’m saying is mean, but I’m in a really good mood and I’m a really good guy and you’re gonna see it.” And when they’re not on my side, I can either get mad at them and get really mean and push them away more like the idiot that I am, or I can just be like “Just focus on what you’re saying. Have faith – know there’s a point to it and just keep going. Eventually, they’ll come around.” I’ll tell you what I’l never do: I’ll never let up and be like “Oh, what’s the deal with airline peanuts?” My act is my act; I’m not going up there if I don’t get to say something.

What do you want people to take away from your live show?
I’d like them to learn to laugh at themselves. The people that say, “He’s making fun of black people,” or, “He’s making fun of Italian people,” or, “He’s making fun of female people,” are getting caught up in those adjectives: black, female, Italian. I’m making fun of people; we’re all people. You gotta laugh at yourself. Don Rickles was the greatest at it ’cause he’d attack everyone, and they’d be like. “Yeah?” And they’d just laugh, because he wasn’t being mean about it. It sounds deep, but we’re all in this together. Unless you have the answers to everything, let’s just fucking laugh at it.

People are always like “Oh, don’t make fun of that.” Why? People don’t realize it, but if I do a black joke and white people look and go “Why isn’t the black person laughing,” then they’re the racists. They’re the ones saying, “I’m white, they’re black. I can’t laugh.” I’m like, “Hey, that’s a joke. I’m just using an adjective here.” I’m making fun of myself, as much as everyone. Once you start laughing at yourself, everything is funny. You have to be able to laugh at what’s not funny. Laughing at what’s funny is easy.

Such a huge part of comedy is experienced at clubs. So when people like Dane Cook, Carlos Mencia and Michael Richards get on TV, they’re huge representations of stand-up in the media. Does that help or hurt the rest of you?
It depends on your viewpoint. It can only help me, because I believe comics like Michael Richards and Dane Cook and Mencia polarize people. People that are truly fans of comedy will be resentful of a guy like Mencia, who is just coming up more and more that he’s a fucking crook. When people call me Michael Richards, which does happen a lot, I’m just like, “You don’t get it. Michael Richards is a racist. There’s no question about the way he snapped. He can apologize all he wants for what he said, but it came out there.

Dane cook is a brilliant entertainer. That’s his goal — to entertain and fill seats and sell out Madison Square Garden. He’s not trying to make you think. I think it’s great for us. I heard Jim Norton say it once about Tough Crowd, “We don’t want a middle ground.” I don’t want you to say, “Geno Bisconte? Yeah, he’s okay. I could take him or leave him.” No. I want them to be like, “He’s great!” Or. “He’s awful.” I want you to be passionate about me one way or another. I think these guys in the media really help true fans of comedy because they help them pick a side.

You have an interesting view on the role of contemporary comics, comparing some to philosophers and others to rock stars. Can you explain that?
I think Dane Cook’s a rock star. I think Jim Norton is a philosopher. There are two lines of thought, and it all goes back to: Do you want to make me laugh, or do you want to make me think and laugh? I think stand-up comedy is as close as we have to modern-day philosophy. You look at the lives comics lead and, yeah, some are rock stars – they get laid and do all that shit, and that’s great. But then you look at guys like Dave Attell. You see him on a Wednesday night and he’s just going through a whole list of new things. Norton’s the same way.

I just saw Doug Stanhope, who is as close as you’re gonna get to a modern philosopher because he just says his point and then goes off on a tangent. He’s really got something to say. You really want to make people think. After a while, you want to do more, otherwise you feel like you’re just a monkey on a wheel being like, “Laugh! You get it? You get it?” You want to make people think. Look at the greats – you got Carlin and Pryor and Norton. They make you think.

There’s no such thing as a philosopher these days – Priests? Rabbis? These people took the word of God and then as it went into writing, made it more and more masculine. I’m trying to think where in the Koran it says to fly a plane into a building or where in the Bible it says priests shouldn’t have kids. It doesn’t, but it’s just Man ruining the word of God. That’s not philosophy. That’s fucking bullshit.

So in one sentence, what’s your philosophy?
Be happy. If you had a happy childhood, grow up and spread that around. If you didn’t, then how dare you fucking try and spread the misery that you were strong enough to leave. I won’t sit there and fucking feel bad for you if you’d rather be right than be happy. Was that one sentence? Use a lot of ellipses.

For more information on Geno, check out www.genobisconte.com.

Paul F. Tompkins: Impersonal

by Nick A. Zaino III

Comedians face a bit of a dilemma when recording an album. They can do all their best new material and risk repeating themselves night after night. Or they can record old material and risk sounding irrelevant or, worse, disinterested. So an album of older material called Impersonal wouldn’t inspire high hopes for a great comedy experience.

But the album in question recorded live at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Los Angeles, is by Paul F. Tompkins, the current king of the smart-asses. Tompkins’ delivery is part carnival barker, part Steve Martin in his vain-comic mode. His persona is a buttoned-down hipster shaded with H.L. Mencken’s political wit.

As Tompkins states in the liner notes, his comedy has become more personal lately, and this album is a collection of mostly conceptual material. But none of it sounds cold or outdated.

For some comedians, sarcasm replaces having to write actual material. Find something dumb, apply a healthy dose of attitude, and, voila, instant comedy. That doesn’t apply to Tompkins.

Despite his smart-ass status, Tompkins is as imaginative as any comedian working today. His sarcasm is often shrewdly self-mocking, and besides, a nice drizzling of snark makes it easier for the Best Week Ever crowd to swallow Tompkins’ more subtle ideas.

Take, for example, the album’s opening bit. Tompkins tells a story about making fun of a Goth girl running (which obviously breaks some sort of unspoken Goth rule), but it’s essentially a story about how Tompkins is an asshole for doing it. But damned if it isn’t funny from both angles — whether you see it as a riff about the Goth girl or a riff about himself or both.

On “Stromboli,” Tompkins plugs a wonderfully batty idea into a standard joke cadence — “What is worse than haunted food? You think you’re having a nice turkey club. Oh, great! Screaming undead soul inside me — and uses it as the capper for a ghost story about a phantom stromboli.

Tompkins’ brand of sarcasm doesn’t keep the audience at a distance; it’s an accent color in his palette and actually makes his comedy more inclusive. That’s an impressive feat.