Comedian Ellis Rodriguez takes a yeoman’s approach to standup

It’s 10 p.m. on a Sunday and I’m in a bowling alley bar with the hottest girl in Elk Grove (her claim) and local comedian Ellis Rodriguez. The topic of discussion: who has the best life ever? The 22-year old Elk Grove girl swears up and down it’s her, since she coined the phrase “best life ever,” but her mom has to drive her home for political reasons. I feel as though I’m disqualified from the competition because I’m drinking in a bowling alley bar in South Sacramento. But Rodriguez is the closest to actually living it because, as he puts it, “I draw comic books and I tell dick jokes. That is the best life ever.”

I meet up with Rodriguez the next day at the Stoney Inn a couple hours prior to its open mic night, which is complemented by country karaoke night in the adjacent room. What type of crowd attends this open mic, I ask? “Random assortment of mostly urban comedy goers,” is his reply. This is the trenches for a comedian. In a night’s time I receive a crash course in one comedian’s regimen for sharpening his jokes just to squeeze one funny minute out of the week.

His first night up was an open mic at Old Ironsides. He says with conviction that he became a full-time comic the day he got on stage, but at the time he did not have a job standing in the way. Rodriguez was living out of his car, working comedy at night for three months before a friend got him a job as a branch manager selling wholesale toilets.

“I was branch manager/trainer/operations recruiter for the number one wholesaling plumbing company in the world,” he says. “Great company. Great people. Couldn’t fucking stand it.”

He gave his days to toilets, but the nights were long drives to San Francisco to wait around at open mics for opportunities to do five minutes on stage. Keep in mind it is comedy courtesy to stay until the end.

“Once I drove to Pleasanton for an open mic,” Rodriguez says. “Another comedian told me about it, and I looked forward to it all 12 hours of my shift that day. I got into work at 4:30 [a.m.] that day. At 5 [p.m.] I headed straight there after work only to arrive to an empty bar that wasn’t even open. I heard there was some stage time in San Francisco so I went to get some time only to arrive and be told that I ‘might be able’ to get some stage time. I stayed until the end that night, desperate for time. I was the last one called up at 11:14 p.m. I got home at 1 a.m. and it was inventory week. I had to pull a 12-hour shift again the next day. Par for the course.”

Now a full-time comic, Rodriguez employs a strict regimen that includes open mics Mondays through Wednesdays and paid gigs at clubs on the weekends. The drive I ride along for begins on Del Paso Boulevard, treks up to Folsom and then over to Roseville. He’s never alone, though. His 2-year old Italian Greyhound named Muñeca rides along. “Tonight I’ll do three [open mics], tomorrow I’ll do two, Wednesday I’ll do four or five and then work the weekend,” he says. “It’s one of the few things I’m actually regimented about. There’s no excuse. None of the mics start before 8 [p.m.]… you can get up by 8.”

Rodriguez goes up around 8:30 p.m. at Stoney Inn to the crowd he predicted. Minutes before he goes up, he’s in my ear scrolling through his cell phone notes, running jokes by me that he might try out. It’s a fleeting moment of meekness. The related fragments have potential, but it’s when he takes the stage, assuming a confident persona, that Rodriguez discovers exactly what it is about “testing out white slavery for a month” that makes people laugh. Rodriguez just secured another minute toward his full hour set.

“I write around five to 10 minutes every week,” he says. “If you write 10 minutes, then one minute is going to be good. You keep that minute. At the end of the year I’ve got another 52 minutes.”

Rodriguez is in his fifth year of standup, tirelessly logging hours and pages of notes. He records all his sets, reviewing the tape like a scouting coach hoping to find flaws and room for improvement. “I do black rooms, white rooms, alternative rooms,” he says. “I do every room I possibly can to get as good as I can be in that room. You have to be able to read an audience and know how to react to it, but not necessarily think that once you crush it for 10 minutes that you’ve conquered that room. Can you do it again with different material?”

An hour later we’re at Po Boyz Sports Bar & Grill in Folsom and, save for three 20-somethings having a night out and the owner’s friends, the room is littered with comedians waiting to get up. Cheryl the Soccer Mom from the Real Funny Housewives of Rio Linda is hosting, and a young comedian is on stage venting about being excluded from the News & Review’s comedian feature. It’s a hostage situation.

Unfortunately it creates discomfort in the room that seems impenetrable as several comedians to follow struggle with the sound of silence. Rodriguez embraces the awkwardness and begins riffing hard on his friend Samm Hickey, who’s in the room. He tries out an AIDS joke we’ve discussed a few times that has yet to reach its full potential. We step outside to smoke a cigarette after his set and casually discuss the dos and don’ts of STD jokes. To him there’s something undeniably funny about saying his friend, who was recently diagnosed with AIDS, having “double AIDS,” even if it didn’t go over well the previous night in Elk Grove.

“I think I did all the herpes things,” he says. “I did most of the crabs thing, but they were really uncomfortable. I think there were a couple people that had that shit. I wanted to write another STD joke, but I’ve found that nobody knows enough about gonorrhea or syphilis for it to be funny. It’s just gross.”

Throughout the night I gather insider knowledge about the ideal crowd from Rodriguez and overhearing other comedians relate stories. Rodriguez tells me it was not the crowd itself, and never should be blamed, that made his Elk Grove show difficult, nor is it the presence of a bowling alley in the next room. An ideal room is dark, slightly chilly and compact. One comedian stressed the importance of seating the audience in order to prevent a scattered crowd.

“The crowd was too spread out so they are able to form a consensus of what’s funny within their little groups,” Rodriguez says of the Elk Grove gig. “They didn’t have to worry about what the people around them were feeling. That contagiousness of laughter is what makes it easy. But, if you can kill that crowd, then you’re going to destroy whatever show is set up properly.”

It is nearing midnight and we’ve arrived at the Boxing Donkey, a narrow Irish Pub in Roseville, for our final open mic. The bouncer asks that Rodriguez, a former Marine, tuck in his tags and Jesus piece–apparently they’ve had chain issues previously.

I ask Rodriguez about his time in the military, considering he was always a jokester growing up. “I was not a good Marine, at first,” he says. He was 19 and distracted with partying instead of attending his college courses when he decided to join the military.

“I’ll join the Marine Corps because they’ll make a man out of me,” he says. “I realized very quickly that Marine Corps does not make a man out of you. It gives you the opportunity to be a man. It puts you in situations where you’re pushed and strained. You’re constantly being tested and the choices you make, make you a man or a Marine.”

The Marine Corps wasn’t all precision posture, firm salutes and combat training, though. Rodriguez says there was still room for humor. “One of the things we did was send a person to retrieve an ID10Tango form on the other side of the base. They’d show up and the people there would say, ‘what are you doing here, you get that from ADMIN first, then ADMIN would say, ‘you need an ID10Tango release from your unit.’ They would come back and someone would finally tell them to write down ID10Tango. I. D. 10. T.”

It is nearing 1 a.m. when Rodriguez seizes the mic at Boxing Donkey. The room is brightly lit, less than ideal, but it gives him a visual on the room’s reaction. By now he’s told the bit about being so drunk at a Halloween party that he actually thought he was Superman for the third time in the night, but he is orating with the proper emphasis and pauses to make absurd glances to pull the most laughter. He takes notice of a group of black men not laughing much by the bar. “I’ve got one for you guys,” he says and launches into the white slavery bit, winning over the doubters with a blindside punch line.

I don’t get back to my Malibu parked on Del Paso Boulevard until 1:40 a.m. The Stoney Inn is long closed, I’ve got a burger in my hand from Jack in the Box and a guy on a bicycle is circling Rodriguez’s car giving us weird looks before pedaling off. He tells me he’ll wait until I get in my car before he drives off. It’s par for the course for Rodriguez, but for me it’s damn exhausting.

“I’ve got hours to log,” he says. “You keep coming back until you get a nice easy room at The Improv opening for Bruce Bruce and you’ve only got to do 25 minutes, but you’re going to kill because you did all these gigs at crappy open mics working out new material in bars and bowling alleys.”

Ellis Rodriguez will perform at Tommy T’s in Rancho Cordova on April 28, 2011. This will be a live DVD taping. Also performing are Dennis Martinez and Hunter Hill. This 17-and-over show starts at 8 p.m.

Veteran funnyman Kevin Nealon strives to keep current

Many experts argue that laughter is good for you. They say it’s therapeutic to the mind, body and soul, that it relaxes the whole body and even boosts the immune system. If this is the case, comedian/actor Kevin Nealon has been healing millions of people worldwide for decades. From 1986 to 1995, Nealon was hilarious on Saturday Night Live (remember The Subliminal Man? How about Hanz and Franz?); he also had us rolling on the floor with his appearances in such films as Happy Gilmore, The Wedding Singer and Grandma’s Boy, and he’s currently keeping the laughs going as Doug Wilson, the stoner city councilman, accountant and part-time pot dealer on the hit Showtime series Weeds and as the lead in Glenn Martin, DDS, a stop-motion animated series on Nick at Nite.

One thing that’s stayed consistent throughout his lengthy career is his love for doing stand-up. He says that stand-up came first and then the acting gigs flowed. “That’s what I really wanted to do was stand-up comedy,” Nealon says of his early years. “The acting came secondary. Stand-up was what I loved and then I got on talk shows and then I was in that Roxanne movie with Steve Martin and I got on SNL in 1986, but I never stopped doing stand-up.”

Lucky for us he still hasn’t stopped, and on Jan. 14 and 15, 2011 he’ll bring his act to Tommy T’s Comedy Club in Rancho Cordova. Nealon was gracious enough to take some time to chat with Submerge while in Hawaii on vacation, sort of.

How’s Hawaii? Are you there for fun time or work time?
Well, it’s rest time to be ready for work. Or, you know, to recover from work I guess [laughs]. I don’t know. I had an interesting morning, though. I was at breakfast and this guy starting choking and a friend of mine did the Heimlich maneuver on him. I’d never saw that in person. He saved the guy’s life.

So you were just sitting there watching it all?
I was there just watching and enjoying my breakfast. I didn’t know that there was entertainment with the breakfast.

Talk about all-inclusive.
Yeah, but I’d never seen that actually happen in real life.

I’ve never seen that happen in real life either, but it’s one of those situations that’s depicted in so many movies and TV shows that you feel like you’ve seen it happen, you know?
Yeah and It’s usually in comedies where you see it, you know, where the thing pops out of the person’s mouth and goes flying across the room [laughs].

Probably wasn’t so funny in real life.
No, it was funny.

You’re going to appear in a ton of films this year. For example, Just Go With It, the Adam Sandler and Jennifer Anniston flick. You play a character called Adon, right? What can you tell us about that?
Well, Adon is Middle Eastern, and he’s a plastic surgery junky. He can’t get enough and he’s fairly persuasive to the people around him. He just likes to have a good time and likes to look good.

I saw something on your website about that role that said, “You might not even recognize me.” Was there major makeup involved?
Oh yeah, it was six hours in the makeup chair. I think we shot like three or four days and they only used one scene. That’s the way movies are. It was fun doing the movie though, it was fun hanging out with Jennifer and Sandler and I think it’s going to be a funny movie.

Heidi Montag plays your wife, right? That seems kind of fitting considering she’s a real-life plastic surgery addict. How was it working with her?
It was nice. She was very sweet. It couldn’t have been more pleasant. She was very eager.

How about the Nick Swardson and Christina Ricci porn-tinged comedy called Born to Be a Star. Who do you play in that?
That’s a fun one; I can’t wait until that one comes out! That’s a really funny film. I play Nick Swardson’s character’s abusive roommate trying to connect with Christina Ricci’s character. Nick’s character becomes my roommate because she asks my character to take him in and I’m just totally abusive to him. I don’t think you’ve seen anything more abusive.

Couple more. How about Jack and Jill, the one where Adam Sandler plays, well, Jack and Jill. How do you fit into that one?
Well I just play a doctor at the beginning of that film delivering two kids. And that’s actually Sandler’s sister who’s giving the baby in real life and his brother plays her husband [laughs].

Keeping it in the fam! Finally, there’s And They’re Off with Martin Mull and Sean Astin. Who do you play in that one?
That was a fun movie. My wife and I did that together. It’s more of an improv scene, which was really fun. Martin Mull and Sean Astin were great to work with. It was just a great day, one of those days where it clicks and it just goes by in an instant.

You thrive in improv situations, don’t you?
Yeah, we had a good time doing it. My wife was in The Groundlings for a while, the comedy company, so she loves improv too and she’s a great actress. It was kind of like playing all day, you know, and when you work with Martin Mull and Sean Astin it’s just a real heyday.

You’re a really busy guy! How do you shuffle all your projects?
Well, you know, it sounds like I’m busy, but for example I did that Swardson film over a year ago I think.

So on paper you’re busy?
Yeah, on paper it looks like I’m really busy and people tell me, “You got to slow down,” but really I have so much free time, it’s crazy.

As far as work ethic goes, whom do you look up to in the comedy world?
Well first and foremost Adam Sandler, that guy is a workhorse. He’s constantly working and looking forward to the next project. Sarah Silverman, Gary Shandling was also a big influence for me. If you go back a little bit, Albert Brooks. Steve Martin of course–he’s a genius.

You had a stand-up DVD out a while back called Now Hear Me Out. When can we expect another one?
I am actually working on one, yeah, that’s one of the reasons I’m doing so much stand-up is to come up with another special. That was my first one-hour special after all those years of doing stand-up. I figured it was time to do one. I’m such a perfectionist in a lot of ways, and I keep waiting to come up with better material, but you know what, that may never happen [laughs].

How tough is it for comedians to compile an hour’s worth of solid material to do a full-on special like that? It seems like it’s the equivalent of writing an album for a musician, or a screenplay for a writer, or a book for a novelist or something like that.
It is intense depending on the comic and how often they try their new material and write. Some of these comics come out with a new special every year, and they’re kind of not as good as their first special, because that’s when they had all of their material. Unlike musicians. I was just reading “The Beatles: 100 Greatest Songs” in Rolling Stone, and they had deadlines when they had to come up with songs, so they were kind of like forced to write songs by a certain time. Sometimes they came up with a great song, sometimes not so great, but they had record deadlines. But comedy has to be a little more organic, you know? You have to really find the material and hone it down. I’ve done stuff on talk shows, and I look back on it now and I think, “What happened to that hunk?” but I didn’t have the other half of that bit at that point.

When it comes to writing new material for your stand-up routine, where do you usually find your inspiration?
A lot of it is based on my life, you know, an exaggeration of my life. Or you know it’s me sitting with friends, talking and me coming up with something funny because I’m relaxed and loose. Like I was thinking about how people meditate, and I was thinking my New Year’s resolution would be to relax more, so I thought, “Maybe I should start meditating.” I tried that, but it becomes more of a worrying thing for me, I just start worrying. Then I thought maybe that’s because my mantra is, “Ohhhhh noooooo.”

Did becoming a father change the way you write your stand-up material?
Well, he’ll [Gable, Nealon’s son] be 4 at the end of January. Anytime you have a big life change like that, it kind of shifts your thinking pattern. It really was an influence on my writing, but I don’t have a lot of material about being a father. I had a lot of material about going through the pregnancy, in fact I wrote a book about it. As far as being a father, I haven’t really dissected that too much. I’m just kind of enjoying it. Some club owner told me once, “The best way to kill your career is just to do stuff about being a father.”

So that’s really stuck with you?
It has stuck a little, but I don’t know if it’s always true. I haven’t seen Seinfeld’s act lately, but I’m sure even he’s doing stuff about being a Dad. I mean Bill Cosby based his whole career on it.

Have you showed your son any of your movies or your stand-up DVD yet? If so, how did he react?
Oh yeah, he’s seen me in a few things. He’s watched Glen Martin, DDS and he heard my voice and recognized it. He points and he laughs and he goes, “Look it’s Daddy.” I think he thinks I go down to a Walmart or something and just put myself in a movie [laughs].

Weeds has had a ton of success; and in my opinion, your character, Doug Wilson, is one of the funnier ones on the show. How do you prepare for that sort of “stoner-ish” role? Because contrary to popular belief, you don’t smoke pot, do you?
That’s right. I think I go in with the attitude of a friend of mine who smokes a lot of pot, in that he basically doesn’t really have any concerns about the rest of the world. It’s kind of like he’s just looking out for what he enjoys doing, and if he has to make a decision between what’s right and what’s good for him, he’ll usually pick what’s good for him [laughs]. So I think it’s that kind of mental attitude that my character assumes, and he’s basically just out to have fun.

I bet you get people coming up to you all the time like, “You’re on Weeds, let’s go smoke a doobie!” That’s probably annoying, huh?
[Laughs] We went to Haight-Ashbury about a year ago, and you wouldn’t believe the amount people gave us. We were walking around, my wife and I, and I just had a hand full of pot.

I’m always curious about this with comedians: what makes you laugh?
Um, usually the Heimlich maneuver.

So this morning you were set, then huh?
Yeah, I fell off my chair. Real people doing unpredictable things makes me laugh. You know, Candid Camera used to be one of my favorite shows. You know what I mean, though, people not trying to be funny and it just happens. Or kids–kids are really funny. Just their rationale and thinking is just so funny because they are just so innocent. I like dry humor, you know, like Flight of the Concords and Eastbound and Down.

You just seem to be getting funnier with age. You’re like a fine wine or something. How much longer do you see yourself making people laugh?
Well yeah, I don’t think I’ll ever retire because I enjoy doing this. But you know, I start thinking about that as I get older. I think the most important thing is to kind of stay connected and relevant and to stay on top of things, so you can kind of relate to people that are younger than you.

With close to 1.3 million Twitter followers, I’d say you’re pretty on top of things.
[Laughs] Yeah, I guess so. Anyways, that’s my objective: stay current as much as possible.

If you missed Kevin Nealon when he was in Sacramento you can see him on Feb. 26, 2011 at Montbleu in South Lake Tahoe.

Standup comedian and general pop culture humorist, Natasha Leggero

Although convincing in her roles portraying strippers, sozzled skanks and “housewives” on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Reno 911, Natasha Leggero is no high-class hooker. She is a comedian.

Leggero spoke with Submerge about doing standup, Snooki and why it’s so natural for her to act obliterated.

How long have you been doing standup?
Nine years.

Do you remember the particular club or city where you started your standup career?
I was in Los Angeles at the Comedy Store in the Belly Room, which is a room that was actually designed in the ‘70s for women comedians, and it’s just a great, easy room for comedy. It’s a great place to start out. I think they call it the Belly Room because it’s kind of like a womb. There are no distractions. It’s this small, dark room with low ceilings and no bar in the back. It’s a really kind room for comedy.

No big mistakes that first time?
I’m still trying to get a set as good as the first time I was onstage. It was a great set, and then I was so shocked that everyone was laughing. Yeah, it was just this amazing experience. The laughter just felt like waves coming over me. But now that I think about that story, I remember someone had given me a Xanax, and I had had some wine, so it might have been the drugs doing that.

You’ve portrayed quite a few characters. Which is your favorite character that you’ve acted out at this point?
Anything I do with the people from Reno 911 is my favorite, because they’re all just such amazing improvisers that somehow they make you funnier by just being so generous and funny themselves. They really know how to set you up for the jokes.

I worked with Tom Lennon and Ben Garant from Reno 911. I did Reno four times and I did their movie. I just did a pilot for them for NBC, which didn’t get picked up. Now we’re doing one for FX, which is a white trash, futuristic version of Reno 911; it’s set in space. It’s called Alabama, and I’m going to be playing a sex robot. I’m a sex robot in the future, who’s on the spaceship and everybody is tired of fucking.

So you become a defunct sex robot.
Exactly. I think at one point they order me a new vagina. But it’s all improv.

You’re pretty obviously obliterated in that role on Reno 911. Was it very difficult to act very trashed?
It was sort of an impediment when I was in acting school. We’d be doing Chekov and they’d say, “Stop moving around so much, you seem like you’re drunk.”

And it’s just a physicality that I just naturally do, that, um, seems like I’m drunk. Especially when I’m onstage. I’ve always liked to fall. I always have been good at it. I would always pretend to fall for my friends. I mastered that art of pratfalls, and I’d always have comedy bruises all over myself. It’s something I always knew how to do and it goes well with being wasted.

You are a consistent guest on Chelsea Lately. How many times have you been on that show?
I think I lost count at 70… Last time I did it, Snooki was there, whom you may know from her work on the Jersey Shore. I had my dog with me, who’s a little Chihuahua, and we were backstage. I have a little “service dog” vest for it so I can take it into restaurants, and Snooki was like, “Can I see yoor dwaag?” So I said sure and showed her my dog. She was like, “Why ya got this vest?” I was like, “I have epilepsy,” as a joke, and she said, “What’s epilepsy?” I thought that was pretty phenomenal that word has escaped her, her whole life.

What are your thoughts on reality TV?
I just don’t understand why we’re calling them “stars” when it’s the first thing they’ve ever done… In general it’s pretty silly, but it’s definitely there for us to make fun of, I feel like. It’s a good time to be a comedian.

You joke about not wanting kids, but there’s a picture of you and a baby on your Twitter page.
I can’t believe my friend let me breastfeed her baby! Actually, she let me put a pacifier in the baby’s mouth, and then I pressed it up against my boob. So, that’s not my child. I should re-do that picture with my dog.

When doing jokes about hip-hop songs, you actually sing, and your voice sounds really good. Do you have any plans on adding “singer” to your entertainment resume?
I would love to sing more. My voice is not that trained. I definitely think I could do a lounge act.

If you did put out an album, what kind of music do you think you would do?
I would probably lay on a piano and belt out some old standards. Or maybe write some new standards about toilet babies.

Do you have any favorite type of audience?
I like people who are a little savvier, hip, stylish. They get where I’m going with everything. They are not afraid to laugh at things that can be slightly mean.

Have you had any run-ins of the obsessed fan sort?
This one guy brought a picture of me on Chelsea… and he took the screen shot right when I was in the middle of crossing my legs and you could see the smallest bit of my underwear and he wanted me to sign it.

What did you say to him?
I said, “That’s disgusting,” and then I signed it.

Felipe Esparza tickles the charity bone
Words by Adam Saake

Most of the time you get 20 minutes. Maybe. Celebrities are busy people with complicated agendas that their publicists keep moving like a well-oiled machine. This was not the case with this past season’s winner of Last Comic Standing, Felipe Esparza. On the dot, I ran out of questions at the 20-minute mark and began to end our interview.

“I never made it that far,” jokes Espraza.

Did you have to audition for Last Comic Standing?
For Last Comic Standing I had to audition. I didn’t wait in line this year so someone must have put in a good word for me this time.

So you’ve auditioned in the past?
Yeah, and I sucked.

I didn’t see you, because you weren’t on those shows.
No, you never noticed me.

You touch yourself in this very strange way while you’re on stage. Almost like you’re trying to pinch your own nipple. Is this a weird tick you’ve developed along the way?
I think every comedian looks for something to hold on to. Some comedians, they lean on the microphone stand. Some comics sit down and others just stand still. I just walk around. I used to wear big coats, and I always closed it over me and tried to hide, because I was so scared of being on stage. And I was just trying to cover myself up like if I had a cape. And little by little I stopped holding my coat and pushing it over me. Because it looks weird. Then I just forgot about it, and now I pretend to hold a coat or something. It’s a habit I guess, I can’t get rid of it.

Normally your delivery is very laid-back and the timed structure of the show seems like it might have been a challenge for you. Did you have to adapt?
I had to adapt, because I only had two-and-a-half or three minutes to wrap it up. We had to submit three minutes of material, no more, no less. I tried to go for the strongest jokes. I have a lot of one-liners, so it was hard for me to do a story because I don’t have so many long jokes. The only long joke I have is [whispers], “I want cereal.” That took a big chance, that one and the last joke I did at the finale, “Now I know you can keep a secret.” There was a risk I took. I did those jokes at the end, because if I had done those jokes at the beginning, I probably would have lost my timing. It was hard to come up with fast jokes. Then the audience. The audience would clap at everything that Tommy and I were saying. They will applause break “hello.” I had to time the audience. I would do the setup and they’d laugh at the setup. Whoa, hold on. The joke’s not even there yet. Like, I said this joke; I said, “The restaurant that’s parked in front of my house…” That got a big ass applause break. And then the punch line was, “…got robbed after I paid.” Some of the comics, I don’t know if they were used to the crowd cheering for them so loud. It was bothering their timing a lot. Me, I was just riding the flow.

Were you writing new material along the way to pepper in with some of the older bits?
A lot of the jokes that I said in the beginning of the competition were new bits. Like the one about the new law in Arizona. I say, “That law sounds scary, but if I get deported I’m going to say the same thing I say when I get kicked out of a club. ‘But sir, I was already in there. My friends are all in there. They’re still holding my credit card.’” That was a new joke; it was only like a month old. “I want cereal” was like a year old.

Were you always a jackass growing up, or did you make your way into comedy through other channels?
Ever since my friend Jackie Escalara invited me over to his house. See, I lived in the housing projects but across the street, not even 100 feet away, was a regular neighborhood. Across the street in a regular house was my friend, Jackie Escalara. He introduced me to Bill Cosby on a little Fisher-Price record player. I listened to that whole bit, about “me and my brother Russell.” The one where Bill Cosby is talking about him and his brother fighting all night. And from then on, I said, man this is funny. I memorized the album. It’s weird how when you’re a kid, when you really love something, you remember it–unlike math and English. You forget that shit when you get home. I wanted to be a comedian from then on.

Were there any Latino comedians who influenced your style and that you looked up to?
I think I like Paul Rodriguez and George Carlin the best. And Richard Pryor. I think my top three are Paul Rodriguez first, Rodney Dangerfield second and George Carlin third. If those three guys had a baby, it would be me looking like Mitch Hedburg but speaking Spanish.

I don’t want to think about the three of them having a baby, at all.
I know huh? It would be crazy. Drinking wine like George Carlin, riding in a Nova with hubcaps and smoking crack in the back! I love Paul Rodriguez because he has different material all the time, and he’s always talking shit about somebody. It’s hilarious. Like I remember Carlos Mencia was on stage preaching. Like he always does now, preaching about how much money he made. He was saying he made a million dollars. But, when we were in the parking lot–there were a bunch of comedians hanging out in our group, and Paul Rodriguez has a Ferrari man. A Ferrari Testarossa. One with a clear fiberglass and you can see the engine in the back. He revs that shit up! I mean loud! He looks at Carlos Mencia and says, “Hey Carlos, next year maybe you should make three million dollars!” And takes off on Sunset.

What are you going to do next? Where are you headed?
I want to continue. I’m going to do the 65-city tour first and foremost with the other four comics. Mike Destefano, Mike Hugh, Roy Woods Jr. and Tommy Johnagin. Four of the strongest comics I ever had to compete with in my life, in comedy. I have a movie that I did with Paul Rodriguez called I Am Not Like That No More, and we’re going to shop that around. And also I’m going to be honored by the city of Los Angeles for being a local hero.

Who did you rescue?
Nobody.

Are you getting a Purple Heart?
[Laughs] You’re the first person to ask me a funny question. That’s funny.

Felipe Esparza will perform at The Crest Theatre on Sept. 9. Tickets start at $25. For more on the show and Felipe Esparza, go to www.felipesworld.com.

Comedian Mike E. Winfield stands ready to command a larger audience

With a performance on The Late Show with David Letterman airing in the near future, Mike E. Winfield has succeeded in dropping the “local” prefix from his title of comedian. In fact, the local label has been absent for some time, given Winfield’s appearances on Last Comic Standing, Comedy Central’s Live at Gotham, and various comedy festivals and competitions.

So far, he’s stayed busy. He touched down in Sacramento the day we arranged an interview, fresh off a flight from Nebraska–“yes, Nebraska, Nebraska,” he confirmed. Two months prior to his stint in Cornhusker land, he did a U.S.O. show in Okinawa, Japan. This month, he’s treating his hometown to a headlining show at the Punchline. “This one has the most buildup,” he said. “It’s from an accumulation of being on stuff. More people recognize me now.”

So I read on your blog that you went snowboarding once, and it’s going to be the only time. What happened that was so traumatizing?
I hit a little kid, man. I was dumb. I forgot to learn how to brake before I went to the more advanced slopes. I was doing full speed and this kid was coming horizontally. I see the kid from far away coming toward this perfect intersection.

I kept thinking, “No, this is not about to happen;” that poor little girl, man. She had on pink and her skis ended up stuck straight up in the snow. I played like I was hurt so I wouldn’t look like a dick. Her dad yelled at me. My friend, who I will never hang out with again, he was like, “You should probably apologize.”

It was fun up until that point. I didn’t even have the right attire. I just put on a whole bunch of clothes. I had Vaseline on my face because I heard it would keep me warm.

I feel like somebody played a joke on you with the Vaseline thing. You also just got back from Japan?
Yeah, I was in Okinawa for a military show. There are troops stationed out there. You want to talk about people who appreciated a show. You didn’t want to leave. There are some bad situations out there. You feel for the troops. They are working hard. A lot of them don’t want to be there. There’s nothing to do. All their outlets are alcohol and clubs, just drinking, waiting for their time to pass.

That was my first one, and I’m down to do more. It felt like I was giving. I am doing what I’m supposed to be doing in life for the right reasons finally.

Are there any weird cultural experiences you had?
The fact that all the vehicles were the same things we had, but smaller versions of them. That struck me first.

Did you earn your stripes in Sacramento?
Yeah, I think I first got on stage at Laughs Unlimited. My first work, I did a weekend at the Punchline, then the following weekend I was booked at Laughs Unlimited. So like my first week of work was two back-to-back weeks. It just didn’t stop. I felt like a new person because I was getting a lot of work. I think it was because I was really clean. It’s opened up a lot of doors.

Would you still consider your material to be clean?
I have my times. Lately I’m on being whoever I am. I just want to be myself and have people say, “Yeah, I’m going to see this guy because he’s funny,” not because, “He does dances and then a flip at the end.” I just want them to go because they think Mike E. Winfield is a funny dude.

I read that you consider your college speech class your start at comedy. Is there truth to that?
As soon as I’d walk in front of the class they’d just start laughing. I would talk about how to make a Whopper. I didn’t have any intellectual speeches. I’d get grades on the delivery, but the content would get Ds. The professor said to just try [standup].

It was fun. I wish I could take another speech class to make up for what I did back in the day.

Whatever happened with the pilot you did with Bobby Lee of MadTV? I take it that didn’t get picked up? Are you trying to break into television and film?
That was like two and a half years ago. It just didn’t get picked up. I’ve been in some other stuff. I’ve decided this is my goal: I’m just going to do standup until I’m happy with the product I have from it. When I’m ready to pitch my own show, I’ll already have my sitcom ideas. If somebody gives me an offer, I’ll do it. I’m just not going to audition for some crap I don’t want to be in anyway.

You look at the greats. They came up with their own product. They had a fan base from standup or whatever else, and they pushed their own stuff. I enjoy standup too much anyway.

Why is it important we include the E. when printing your name?
Right now, it sticks out. The E. has a ring to it–just a little. That’s going to be my thing. Remember when Puff Daddy changed his name? When I get big I’m going to drop the E. That’s how you’ll know. I’ll even throw a press conference.

Dane Cook’s Art of Hustle

Dane Cook has reached the kind of stardom usually reserved for rock stars. It’s a height that most stand-up comedians never achieve, though not for lack of trying. However, it’s the sort of success that hasn’t come without its pitfalls.

Though Cook’s name has become ubiquitous in comedy circles, it wasn’t that long ago that he was a comic like many others, trying to figure out the best way to reach people. In the late ’90s, he began using the Internet as a tool to spread the word, and as it turned out, that word spread like wildfire.

“I really looked at it as a way to create a grassroots following,” Cook says about his first forays into using the Internet as a promotional tool. “You’re talking about 1998 that I started spending a lot more time on the computer. At that time, I was watching a lot of documentary stuff on bands in the ’70s and how certain bands took over. What I was really learning from it was the hustle factor of, like, getting flyers and what it means to paper the town”¦ The next thing you know, I’m sitting online, saying, ‘OK, if I create a Web site and add links to my comedy, maybe I can start reaching out to people.'”

Back then, the use of newfangled gadgetry as opposed to pounding the pavement may have made purists sneer with disdain. However, “Maintaining purity”—whatever that means—is not one of Cook’s main concerns. What he cares most about is putting his content in the hands of those who want it.

“I don’t really know what purist means,” Cook says. “I think it’s like the language of our country; it’s ever evolving. People say, ‘Oh, the way we speak now isn’t as articulate [as it used to be],’ but you know, the language we spoke when we first landed on Plymouth Rock was an abridged version of Old English. It’s an ever-changing thing.”

Those familiar with Cook’s work know that he’s taken the same non-traditionalist slant to his stand-up. Manic, absurd, perhaps downright goofy—Cook has run the gamut with his comedy, never lingering on a particular style. This is something the comedian takes great pride in.

“I talk to comedy—quote, unquote—purists, and I say that I don’t know what pure comedy is,” Cook explains. “Are you talking about standing still and delivering one line? Because Jack Benny may have done it one way—some guy holds a violin and the next guy does slapstick. I always seem to find the other side of whatever the purist’s conversation is.”

Maybe it’s his willingness not to take the traditional route most comedians have taken, or perhaps it’s the level of fame he’s acquired, but Cook has become a controversial figure not only amongst stand-up fans, but also amongst his fellow comics. Nevertheless, he’s still packing arenas all across the country. The latest leg of his world tour, Isolated Incident Global Thermo Comedy Tour has just kicked off in Las Vegas. The tour is in support of his most recent comedy album, Isolated Incident, his fifth, which was released in May 2009. Cook says he wanted the album, which he calls “a bit of an homage to Steve Martin’s Wild and Crazy Guy,” to be a sort of push and pull between dark and light.

“I wanted it to be like, track one would be maybe something about my family, vulnerability, something really sweet, and then I wanted it to go to something really dark and vulgar, maybe sexual, and then I wanted it to go back to something about my pop,” Cook says, though he adds that the final product was a bit different than he had originally intended. Still the ups and downs of his rise to fame and the tumult of his personal life shine through Isolated Incident.

“I found that was my life for three years: dark, light,” he says. “Success: I’m on Letterman. The next day, boom, cancer, my mom just got sicker. Or, ‘I’m in Time Magazine, 100 most influential, how great is that? Who would’ve thought I would ever be in that.’ And the next day, it’s like, ‘These people are starting a rumor about you. They’re saying that you steal.’ How do you deal with the constant blow by blow? And that’s really what I wanted the whole album to have. I wanted it to make you laugh, but I wanted it to be light and heavy.”

The remainder of the tour will take Cook out on the road until a New Year’s Eve show in his hometown of Boston, where he will celebrate his 20th year of stand-up. Hate if you want to, but don’t be surprised if Cook keeps laughing anyway.

I watched the Isolated Incident special that aired on Comedy Central on Youtube. Someone had posted it up there. Coming up on the Internet, now that you’re established, does that sort of thing bother you at all?
It’s just another channel airing your content. It’s another way for people to discover you and have an opinion. This is the tricky—there’s a lot of layers to this conversation, because there’s money involved. The question becomes, OK, is it financially hurting artists? I don’t think that there is a right way, or just one manageable way, to have this conversation, because someone on the other side is going to say it’s hurting the artists, but at the same time, I’ve seen a lot of independent artists who may have not had the airtime, so to speak, if they didn’t have such a strong Internet crowd passing their stuff around. There’s value in all of it. The key really becomes, “What do I want from it?” If that’s the question that you’re asking, I’d rather have fans enjoy something than keep it to myself and feel that it’s only for sale”¦ Someone from a highly regarded band might say, “Oh, I’m losing millions of dollars.” And I understand that, but I think that it’s a great source for passing around material”¦ This is the way people share content. When you were a kid, you gave a cassette to your friend and you’d say, “Listen to this. It’s called Guns N’ Roses. There’s a song on there called ‘Mr. Brownstone,’ and I think it’s about drugs,” and 10 people are listening to it. The next thing you know, Guns N’ Roses is the biggest band in the nation. Maybe that ripple effect is from a couple of kids passing around a cassette.

Your latest comedy album, Isolated Incident, certainly seemed like a different side of you. You had to deal with the death of your parents a little while back”¦
A lot of my comedy over the years was outward, in: observational or absurdist or something physical that I saw that I could recreate and share. Isolated”¦ was the first time I was impacted so deeply in my heart by tragedy, that I realized, “OK, I’m not going to go around it, because then I’m a phony.” I’ve never had anything that heavy happen to me, to that extent. I had my dark periods when I was a kid—some family stuff like anybody that was pretty brutal—but for the most part, my comedy was about joy. There was a lightness, and even the twisted dark shit in there was almost from an optimistic slant. So, here it is; I experience these two years of hardcore, traumatic situations with my family, and I realized as it informed my stand-up that a lot of people had been through cancer and a lot of people had been through these backlash moments in their lives. I thought I would approach that, and this might be a great chance also to put the camera down in one place, confine myself to a smaller stage—less about movement and more about language—and let that camera, with its stillness, look right at my eyes. I can’t move around too much, because, you know, the eyes are the window to the soul, and I wanted people to see that pain and how I came above it and found humor even in the darkest spots”¦ This was an isolated incident in my life. You’ll never again lose both your folks to cancer; you’ll never again have your star rise as high as it did and also have the backlash and the innuendo. No matter how many times the roller coaster ride will go up and down during the course of a career, it will never happen for the first time again”¦ It informed my comedy, and I feel really fortunate that when I read the e-mails after it [the Isolated Incident special for Comedy Central] aired, a lot of those kids who were coming drunk to my college shows 15 years ago were saying things like, “Hey, I felt like you were talking to me 15 years ago, and I feel like you’re talking to me now.” It sounds weird to say now, coming up on 20 years [of performing stand-up comedy] that I feel like I’ve grown up with a generation of fans, and it’s probably the last great gift that my mom and dad could’ve given me in an impossible time to say that, “You know what, Dane? It’s OK to change and to mature a bit.” I can still be silly or off-the-wall and vulgar; I can still be pensive. I can still bring all those things to my stand-up, but I never brought vulnerability. It’s a good place to be.

The one bit I liked from the special was when you were talking about finding your mom’s number in your cell phone’s address book, which is such a uniquely modern dilemma. How did you go from that moment to eventually be able to find the humor in it and turn it into a joke for your act?
For a situation like that, it really came to me so simply. I had my mom and my dad’s number in my book there, a year after I lost them both, and it was this weird moment that I was looking down at the phone and I was”¦just having this conversation with myself: Is it OK to delete them? Those numbers”¦there’s nobody there anymore”¦ It just occurred to me, “What if I called it? What could happen?” And suddenly I’m laughing to myself over this silly little conversation that I’m having with myself, and then of course, like most things that I think of that I think are funny, I say to myself, “I bet a lot of people might understand this.” I bet there are a lot of people who have lost somebody special and don’t know what to do in that moment, and it’s hard and heavy and sad.

It’s such a simple joke. I remember somebody saying to me, “It could have gone so many different directions. Why didn’t you build on it this way or that way?” It was almost like this person was saying that they were let down by an opportunity to turn this into an extravagant bit. And I was like, no, that’s the simple beauty of it. It’s just a moment we all have, and what if she answered? That’s what I said to myself, and that’s what made me laugh and feel lighter, and that’s what people—most people—appreciate about that joke. It’s a timeless joke, if I can toot my own horn. A hundred years from now, somebody’s going to hear that, and whatever form of communication we’re using, we’re always going to lose somebody, and there’s always going to be somebody’s time to let go.

You mentioned the backlash against you, and not only did you have to hear it from fans, but also from your peers. How does it feel to get that sort of backlash from your peers? Does that affect the way you go about your business?
It’s a little bit of a mixed bag. There’s a lot of innuendo, and there’s a lot of stuff that people put up on the bathroom wall that’s just myth. Haters are vocal; we all know that. The people who blog negativity aren’t sitting there in their three-piece suits with a smile on their face, enjoying their lovely lives. People who are relatively happy don’t carry an axe around waiting to bury it in somebody’s back. But that goes with the industry. I understand that that’s the dog eat dog mentality, and also from my peers, comedians are some of the most fragile and fascinating people I know—and very competitive”¦ So you look at a guy like me, who shot to this new level—or new, old level, not since like a Steve Martin or Dice—and you realize these are the guys who are going to try to take my legs out from under me. They’re going to be the ones who are going to say a lot of shit, and you know what? I’m not going to fight back”¦ History will unfold the way it’s supposed to, and I will continue to keep on doing what I do, which is listen to the fans. On the other side of that, I’ll say that when you do talk about my peers, the people who I could talk about with you are wonderful and reach out to me. Chris Rock has called me and said some of the most incredible things, and I admire him. I had lunch with Steve Martin, my hero, about three weeks ago. I’ve sat with Bill Cosby and talked for 45 minutes”¦and he said some incredible things about my stand-up, and I could go on. So, my peers, the ones who I admire, have reached out, and they’ve been very supportive. Eddie Murphy sat next to me at my Good Luck Chuck premier. I don’t know Eddie Murphy; I’d never met him. He just showed up at my movie, and in the darkness of my movie, about 10 feet away from me on the other side of the aisle, I heard [imitates Eddie Murphy’s laugh]”¦ I heard fucking Eddie Murphy laughing at me. So if you want to talk about people who are talking crap about me, or how I feel about that, bro, I heard Eddie Murphy laughing at me. Whoever these minions are who want to picket me or be envious, let them. If that’s what got me to where I’m getting, that I can sit next to Eddie Murphy or Chris Rock or have lunch with Steve Martin or Bill Cosby, I’ll take the hits.

Comedian Doug Benson Returns to Punch Line

Humoredian Doug Benson has it made. While you and I sit at home angered by celebrity antics, cursing the television, while we watch movies and comment to our friends on merits, while we get stoned and laugh at silly nonsense, Benson has signed some deal in blood to get paid for these slacker pastimes.

Benson is currently on tour, so I called him at a Hampton Inn in St. Louis (proving he is not too famous for our little publication). He had just finished an appearance on the Great Day St. Louis morning show and returned to his room to escape the “hella hot” Midwest forecast. Upon hearing a familiar, often abused, Northern California slang term, I asked Doug if he was from our territory. “I just hear a bunch of words and repeat them,” he replied. “It’s not habit.”

This August, Benson will be at Sacramento’s Punch Line, a venue he has played before. He was particularly intrigued with the strip mall location of the Punch Line, which probably looks a little different now. “It’s the strangest comedy club positioning I’ve ever seen,” he said. “There [was] like a foam store, a TJ Maxx and a mattress store. It’s like a one-stop shopping center for a pimp. He’d be able to get all his shit there.”

Those still unfamiliar with Doug Benson might need to take a morning or two off from wake-and-baking. In 2006, High Times named Benson Stoner of the Year, aka your hero. His film, Super High Me, took the premise of Super Size Me and exchanged it with pot. He is the co-creator/writer/star of The Marijuana-logues, which is self-explanatory. He once saw a vagina smoking a joint.

Along with his pot-related accolades, he is a talking head on Best Week Ever, finished top six on Last Comic Standing, has a podcast called I Love Movies, a comedy album called Professional Humoredian—and he said I was a good interviewer.

Most comedians, or people for that matter, are forced to keep their personal habits ambiguous—possibly telling pot jokes or laughing at pot jokes, but not too frequently so they don’t arouse suspicion. Benson has managed to become a renowned toker, yet makes appearances on local morning shows without network hesitation. “They keep it clean and family-style, but it’s also live,” Benson said. “Sometimes when I’m talking, I can see in the eyes of the host that I’m being too risqué for morning television.”

He admits he does not mind the interviews that dodge his pot humor, since he has plenty to talk about beyond marijuana. Yet, his core fans remain a faded following. On Twitter the night prior to our interview, he thanked a St. Louis kid, whose name he could not remember, for smoking him up in his car. I asked Benson if it was bothersome to be loved by a group of people so eager to share their budding wealth. “It’s an exciting thing to have in my life if I am just wandering around and someone offers to smoke me up,” he said. “At shows I get so many offers I can’t say yes to everybody. People get bummed out, which is kind of a drag. I’d be happy to smoke with everybody; unfortunately I’ve got things to do. I certainly didn’t start telling jokes about pot to get free pot, but it’s been an amazing side benefit.”

Benson began his stand-up career on a dare from a friend, while working as a stand-in and extra in Los Angeles. That was 23 years ago. Benson made new friends through comedy by becoming part of the Comedians of Comedy, a group he has toured with extensively. In Super High Me, several of his comedian friends smoke weed on camera, specifically Sarah Silverman and Brian Posehn. Benson has admitted that he did not smoke weed until age 27 when he started working with Bay Area comedians who toke after every show. Now, Benson can’t be seen in public without accusations of being blunted beyond belief; even followers on Twitter that day accused him of being high on a morning show, to which he attested, “No I just woke up and did a show. I’m not one to set the alarm for 15 minutes earlier so I can wake and bake before a show.”

“I do have naturally squinty eyes,” he said. “And I do smoke a lot of pot. So I don’t blame them for thinking I’m high. I can make jokes even when I’m not high. I’m that good at it.”

Truly Benson is capable of entertaining beyond cannabis conversations. His I Love Movies podcast, which he records at Los Angeles’s Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, has a simple premise. Benson and his comedian friends record their rants on movies in front of a studio audience and play the Leonard Maltin game or the Name That Tune game show’s Bid-A-Note round, but with movies.

A fan of the summer blockbuster push, he said he is disappointed with this season thus far. “Terminator was disappointing, Wolverine was disappointing,” he said. “I watched five minutes of Angels and Demons, then got up and left. I was like ‘I can see Star Trek again.'”

Still he found Star Trek was not a perfect movie beyond criticism. In fact, Benson raises an interesting point regarding the story. “I didn’t have the excitement over it that I hoped to have,” Benson said. “It did a good job reinventing all the characters.” Benson immediately broke into a rant with possible spoiler alerts, “Why do they always have to bring time travel into it? Now that they’ve introduced time travel and old Spock tells young Kirk what to do, why can’t old Spock just show up all the time when there’s a problem.” He went on to compare it to Superman spinning the world backwards to turn back time.

Benson included The Hangover in the short list of summer movies he’s enjoyed so far. Show stealer Zach Galifianakis is a member of the Comedians of Comedy and makes an appearance in Super High Me as Benson’s friend. “Well, I take a lot of credit for breaking Zach’s movie career with his appearance in Super High Me,” he said. “Things have been going great for him ever since. I look forward to riding his coattails.” Benson expressed his own interest in pushing into feature films, but admitted he is not prepared to do the full frontal nudity that Galifianakis bared. “I’m a little shy when it comes to public nudity,” he said.

Benson’s current tour is in preparation for his new comedy album, Unbalanced Load, on Comedy Central Records. He is performing an “evolving set” that includes new material. “Certainly anyone who saw me when I was last in Sacramento can expect a lot of new material,” he said. “I will be doing a lot of material from the record that week.” Benson said he usually reserves some time near the end of his set for requests from the audience outside of “more jokes about pot.” He just encourages enthusiasts to shout their favorite bits without tampering with the joke. “The best way to ask for a joke during the show is to not yell out the punch line of the joke,” he said. “Where do I go from there?”