Is local comedy destined for the gutter?
/ ^
It's hard to be funny in
Eugene.
While well-knc local
comedians (yes, re are
well-known local come
dians) must reckon with
unusually discriminating
audiences, newcomer
humorists are discovering that breaking onto
the comedy scene is like an elephant trying to
get into a pair of Danskins.
Two comedy yearlings, Dan McCoy and
Keith Woodrang, are members of a Eugene
humor duet. Woodrang says he started doing
amateur comedy after encouraged by some of
his friends at parties. And that's when it got
tough.
Story by Kim Carlson
and Doug Nash
"Comedy as an amateur is rough," he says.
He adds that club managers aren't nearly as
flexible here as they are in say, Portland or
California. "If you bomb they won't ask you
back."
McCoy agrees that comedy as an amateur is
not all fun and games. "At work I'm a real
joker. But on stage people say ‘yeah you're real
funny.' Audiences are hostile," he says.
Woodrang blames audience hostility on lack
of local comic visibility. "They haven't been ex
posed to comedy very much," he says. Drama
and music seem to monopolize local entertain
ment, he insists. "Bands are great but there's
more to life."
Relatively few nightclubs in Eugene feature
comedy on a regular basis. Even the bad bands
are not funny. McCoy is discouraged about the
small number of local places to perform com
edy. “There's no place to do it," he says. "The
Hult Center is too big; the bars are too rowdy.
People can't just go see comedy."
According to Woodrang, drugs and sports
are big laugh-getters in Eugene. "We deal with
drugs in our act and that's what's gotten the
most laughs," he says.
Woodrang writes most of the "Dan and
Keith" material. The routine depicts McCoy as
a "staunch intellectual" and Woodrang as a
"laid-back hippie type." For jokes the two
poke fun at each other's lifestyles. "The au
dience can identify with us,"says Woodrang.
But getting locked into a stereotype may not
be the great blessing it at first appears to be.
"We want to get out of the characters and in
to just the comedy team-type thing,"
Woodrang says.
Good luck. Even the best of comedy teams
are bankrolling laughs on characterization. *
For the past few years, "On the Edge," a
seven-member comedy troupe, has been sell
ing out performance after local performance
by adhering to a cabaret-type humor based on
lifestyles, issues and characterizations quickly
familiar to the Eugene audience. Hippies,
health food, jogging and environmental issues
are among the big crowd pleasers.
"Generally, in Eugene, everyone likes locally
oriented humor," says Cheyney Ryan, a
University philosophy professor who writes
some of the songs and acts for the group. "You
just mention Saturday Market and everybody
starts laughing."
It doesn't take the comedian long to discover
which jokes bring down the house and which
jokes bring up the dinner. In Eugene, at least,
those who stick to an overly political gag-line
should not expect to come off welfare any time
in the near future.
“When we did things about Nicaragua, it
went over 75 percent of their heads. That may
sound kind of condescending," says |anet
MacIntyre, another "On the Edge" writer and
player. "You use a four-letter word, though,
and they're right back with you.
If there's a trend in comedy — and there
most probably is — it may very well be that, in
terms of language, humor is floating in the gut
ter. People like to be talked dirty to. Examples
abound: Listen for iO seconds to those two
perennial toilet-mouths, Joan Rivers and
Richard Pryor, the queen and king of verbal
feces. Or tune in to Saturday Night Live, com
edy's televised sewage disposal site.
Or, for that matter, monitor the audience
response to a local comedy act.
"We get a certain number of doctors and
businessman-types," Ryan says of the group's
Brass Rail performances. "They're the kind of
people who come wearing suits and ties and
are almost entirely interested in cheap sex
jokes. They're the most depressing people to
play to."
"Comedy's gotten a lot more liberal,” ex
plains Woodrang. "They play around with fire
more than they used to. Pryor and Rivers —
they're vulgar, but they're good at it."
Vulgarity — what we say — gets laughs.
Drugs — what we take — gets laughs. Lifestyle
— what we do — gets laughs. It's a funny world
we live in. |ust ask the comedians. That is, if
you can find them or are quick enough to get
in and see them.
imniiiiniiimrii
iiimiiiniiiiiniil!
Siegle was last year's
Emerald Entertainment editor. He was
also known on campus for. his daily
rushing around, his cutting up in class
and his sparkling Illinois wit. We ap
preciate his contribution to this year's
comedy issue, one that may only fizzle
and pop.
George Carlin put it plainly; "That's my job,
thinking up goofy shit."
That's what comedy is — goofy shil. Those
with minds quick enough, make it up. The
rest go along for the ride. Laughing.
How to blow your nose on a cat:
Grab the cat with thumb and first finger ot
each hand. Grip the little beastie firmly
behind the front legs with right hand and in
front of the back legs with the left. Hold tight
ly but gently.
Turn the cat over. With both hands spread
the cat's legs apart. Now calmly, so not to
frighten it, blow your nose into the soft fur of
tne belly.
Do not rub your face back and forth. You'll
get little cat hairs up your nose, which will
make you sneeze. That'll upset the cat and
probably get you scratched.
Soon it will bathe itseit', and no one wifi be
the wiser.
Comedy, as Steve Martin says, is not pretty.
It is also extremely hard work. How often
has it been said, “Gee, you're funny, you
ought to be a comedian."?
Forget it. ft's granite out there.
like empty Tabasco Sauce bottles, thery
are no old comedians.
Bill Cosby is mugging and hawking Coke.
Carlin's still wheezing through the seven dir
ty words bit after his second heart attack.
Martin's making grody movies and preten
ding to be serious.
funny people shine only briefly. The level
can't be sustained. Flame-out city.
As for jokes, they come and go. They make
rounds. Fad jokes especially. When I was in
high school it was Tom Swifties.
I see now that Helen Keller jokes are com
ing back.
Take a peek at the humor shelves in used
book stores. Elephant jokes. Polish jokes.
Playboy party jokes. Tasteless jokes.
Gag.
jokes and humor are not synonomous.
Humor requires a sense- of the world, albeit
slightly warped. It relies on the build-up, the
iMiiiiiimiiiiiminiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiHMiiiiiifiiiiiiiiiiiiHiiiiiiiiiiiii
development, the drawing in of the un*
suspecting audience.
Telling a joke is just quick pop and (wale.
Being funny, now that's the Fourth of July.
Years ago l (aught school in upstate New
York. We had a very fastidious math teacher
who was always butting in. You know, the
sort who corrects your pronunciation
without being asked.
One day I went into the men's room to
wee. But first I had to wash the chalk dust
from my hands. Face it, it is uncool to walk
around a high school with chalk dust on your
tly
The very fastidious m h teacher was in the
h.v with me. He scrutinized me wash/wee
and as I set to the zipper he could stand it no
longer
'Mr. Siegie," he said to me. (Imagine, a
man old enough to be my father calling me
“Mr. ") “Mr. Siegie," he says, “it is customary
only to wash one's hands after urinating
That was his kind of word, “urinating. ”
“Now Herbie," I says to him, "you know as
well as t that in our religion it is customary to
wash one s hands before handling a sacred
object."
I guess you had to be there.
Jonathan Siegie
..■nuii.iiniiiiiliiltiiHiildiiiiniiminiliinfiiijmHiitij1
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