I hadn’t yet rounded the final bend in the road that kept me
from seeing The Comedy Club, but I worried. Summer was almost over, and things
were starting to pick back up. Would this be the night? Would Ben Bailey, the
comic, be a huge draw? Would Ben Bailey, host of tv’s “Cash Cab,” bring in a
crowd? I had my answer soon enough when
I found myself parked on the far side of the pizza parlor next door. The lot
was full, the tables were full; Ben Bailey was the man. A weekend of good shows
and entertaining audience interactions solidified that impression.
I made a decision a few weeks ago not to talk about the MCs
unless they were new to the role, new to the club, just to avoid becoming
redundant. I’m deviating from that because I need to talk about Dario. I have
seen Dario perform on six nights out of seven this week, and he is on fire.
I’ve watched him take real risks, blending new jokes in with some tried and
true material, and it’s paying off. The time he’s spending doing improv has
made his crowd work quicker, less mainstream. His stage presence is more
natural; his eyes are no longer on his feet. The transformation is a pleasure
to watch and I find myself laughing every time.
Tim Almeter, like Dario, is also a local comic on the rise.
Finishing third in this year’s Funniest Person in Rochester Contest, Tim takes
the stage with an attitude of fearlessness. He assumes the audience will find
him funny, and they do. He jumps right in to material that can be polarizing:
talking about our differences. First up is the Indian woman on the train
platform whose son said he wasn’t going to be a doctor, like some white person,
to which she replied, “Shh. They’re right there.” Then on to a story about his
coworker’s fear (Deer are afraid of white people. Black people are afraid of
deer. White people are afraid of black people.) and the discovery of an
anti-Semitic golf cart (Who’s on the golf course good-time hatin’ Jews?). Tim
talks about things both common (speaking to your cat, wrinkling your
girlfriend’s underwear) and curious (being “regal” at the bar) at a speed that
occasionally requires you to play the joke back in your brain to make sure you
caught it. Both these guys can be found easily on Facebook, or seen live at
various open mics and Laugh Riot productions. It is well worth your time to
seek them out.
Ben Bailey began by acknowledging the potential confusion
that might result for people who had only ever seen him on “Cash Cab.” He apologized for having hair, pointed out
that tv isn’t real. “Know what else isn’t real? I’m not a cab driver.” He did a
long riff on the guy down the road selling dirt and then proceeded to show us
he’d done his homework on Rochester, noting that he was downtown earlier (just
me, no one else. Tumbleweed, tumbleweed, government worker, one lone guy making
Xerox copies) and checked out the Genesee
(thought he’d found a beer river).
Ben’s show is packed with jokes. His rhythm seems to be
premise, punch, punch, tag, tag, tag. He tries to see how far he can go without
the joke weakening. Instead of that taffy-pull feeling where the humor gets
stretched thinner the longer it goes, Ben’s jokes feel like they’re an
incredibly long rope, endlessly uncoiling, until he gets bored and moves on to
the next premise. He talks about things: traffic light countdowns, taking
people to prison in the Oscar Mayer wiener mobile. He talks about places: the
reaction of people in NYC when they see him in the cab (You’re going to be
playing the Hudson River Challenge!), “I was down South, don’t go if you don’t
have to.” He talks about people and how we talk: “Do what now?” It’s always Now
now, stop specifying.” “I don’t understand all y’all. I thought y’all was
already plural.” His bits on good ass toast and ordering multiple Guinesses
were hilarious, as was the friend wanting to borrow a scissor to cut his pant
into short. He also has a great bit about to-do lists: I woke up and looked at
my to-do list. It said “all that stuff” on it. I thought I better get up. I got
all that stuff to do and I don’t know what any of it is.
For myself and the other comedians who watched the shows
with me, the most interesting parts of Ben Bailey’s weekend were his crowd
interactions. On Thursday, there was the mini-fan club down front who brought
him a Cash Cab drawing, “This is cute. Do you have jobs? If I were a gay man,
this would be so important to me. You recruited a colleague? I thought you said
collie.” And the drunk girl: “Don’t pretend you’re mad. You have such a crush
on me. You’re like a little girl who pushes the boy off the swing because she
likes him.” Friday was intense, as there was mounting conflict with a drunk guy
who tried to be funny but just grew more annoying. Ben’s already fast pace
picked up, his anger became apparent as he went back and forth with this guy.
He reminded everyone that timing is part of the job, that he doesn’t just get
up on stage and say random stuff, there’s work and an art to it. The audience
was with him, and Mark had to go warn the guy that he was going to be escorted
out if he didn’t stop immediately. Ben continued and, for a moment, I wasn’t
sure he was as annoyed as he appeared to be. He smile/smirked a little as he
tried to bring us back. Saturday had a mini-match with an audience member, as
well.
I liked watching these near-collisions. No one truly seemed
like they were gunning to screw up the show or mess with Ben Bailey – at 6’6’,
he’s really not the kind of guy most people would test for the hell of it. The
girls seemed a little star struck and the guys just seemed to have had too much
to drink and no way to turn themselves off. Watching Ben stop one step short of
losing it made the already fun show just a bit more enjoyable. In the final
moments, I heard this: “If we’ve learned anything here tonight, it’s that you
can’t learn anything at a comedy show.” Great line, but I don’t agree. I learn
things at comedy shows all the time. This weekend, I learned how much I enjoy
watching hecklers and comics collide just a little. I learned that Ben Bailey
can get people into a comedy club. And I learned that I really enjoy premise,
punch, punch, tag, tag, tag.
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