Just Try Making Jokes

My name is Will Durst and I’m a political comedian. Which means that when nothing’s going on, I’m screwed. But not now.

Son of a Milwaukee machinist, I’ve had more than 100 jobs but never dreamed of doing anything else. Growing up in the shadow of the ghosts of Lenny and Mort and Lord Buckley and the Vietnam War back when you could tell the good guys from the bad guys just from their haircuts, I considered social satire a higher calling. Like the priesthood; only the services are held in bars and the parishioners got to smoke.

Comedy clubs are the new people’s theaters. If Bertolt Brecht were alive today, I’m convinced he’d be a stand-up comic--although a career as a political comedian is not the greased chute to the big time one might think merely by looking at Bill Maher. Networks would rather be caught naked at a Junkie Hookers for Satan convention than be connected to anything controversial or time-dated. Leno and Letterman focus on the topical every night with material they’ve seen four times tops, so the last thing they need is some blue-collar schmuck parroting their premises with a practiced choreography. They’re Macy’s and Nordstrom. I’m a boutique off an alley in SoHo. All my material is hand-sewn.

But I work. About 30 weeks at clubs and 40 corporate gigs a year (where the real comedy money is). I also write some, contribute commentaries to public radio and host a show on PBS called “Livelyhood,” eking out a decent living making people laugh out loud on purpose against their will. I’ve clawed my way to the middle. There are worse ways to live.

Of course, one is subject to the swells and eddies of the real world, more so than your average bear. Bill Clinton was actually bad for political comedy because of how the spotlight drifted below the belt. Every two-bit hack in America pulled a Rumpelstiltskin, spinning sex jokes into presidential sex jokes.

Then there was Sept. 11. Comedy in wartime--a sticky proposition. It took a wee bit of accommodation by both the audience and myself to get it just right. Here’s a partial diary.

Sept. 8, Acme Comedy Club, Minneapolis.

Early Sunday morning. The only reminders of Saturday’s two sold-out shows are a table littered with overflowing ashtrays and a sad gaggle of beer bottles belonging to a small group of serious thinkers: me, Louis Lee, the club owner, and Dan Schlissel, an independent producer who’s taped my seven performances this week in hopes of releasing a CD. I’m ranting about the perishability of my material, a major reason my previous attempts at recording were never released. My complaints shift to the dearth of material on Dubyah. The major arrow in my slim quiver is “George W reminds me of a stripper with hairy legs. Got some real smooth moves but even from way back at the bar you can tell something is horribly awry.” Louis consoles me: “Don’t worry, it’s been quiet too long. Something’s going to happen. You watch.”

Sept. 10, Home, San Francisco.

Packing. Positively giddy about tomorrow’s trip to New Orleans Comedy Festival. Total cruise gig--not in terms of water, but smooth and low maintenance. My lovely wife, Debi Ann, much funnier than I, is scheduled to serve as host of Wednesday’s Improvisation Jam. I’m headlining a show Saturday, and they’re putting us up for a week in the French Quarter and paying us. Already have reservations at three restaurants including a pilgrimage to one where we order the same thing every time. No idea what it is. A stick of butter with herbs nearby is my guess. Aah, New Orleans, home of the neutron bomb of foods. Destroys your internal organs, but it leaves your will to drink intact. Been looking forward to this for weeks.

Sept. 11, Home, San Francisco.

Tube glued.

Awaiting a ride to the airport, we turn on the television and everything we know is wrong. A day of stunned silences broken by incredulous phone calls, humans seeking normalcy through contact. Late in the night, alone watching MSNBC, I chuckle at a crawl reading “New York City reports no unusual looting.” Apparently just the normal Tuesday-night load.

There is humor in the specter of the worst disaster in our nation’s history. All I have to do is sweep away the debris of shock to find it.

Sept. 12, Home, San Francisco.

Furiously writing.

Obviously, the material will not touch upon death or destruction, but as President Bush said, “We all have our job to do,” and mine is to root out items emanating even the faintest ironic aroma. Right now, the jokes will be very red, white and bluish, and will deal with the responses to the catastrophe rather than the events themselves. All Bush bashing put on hold.

* The scariest part of the Pentagon bombing is leaving the Pentagon in control of estimating their own damage repairs.

* While Tony Blair and George W. were touring ground zero, Bill Clinton was squiring Mrs. Blair around Manhattan. Oh terrific, we don’t have enough to worry about, now we’re going to war with England.

* Jerry Falwell blamed gays, feminists and the ACLU for making God turn his back on America. Of course, this is the same guy who was convinced a purple Teletubby was a homosexual recruiter. I think he might be a little over-focused.

It’s a start.

Sept. 13, Cobb’s Comedy Club, San Francisco.

Pacing.

Louis Black, sage curmudgeon on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” scheduled to work this weekend, is stuck in New York till Saturday. Club owner Tom Sawyer calls around 2 p.m. asking if I can fill in tonight and tomorrow. Hell, yeah! Stare at notes wondering if there’s any real or imaginary jokes hidden within. At club, first two guys pretty much ignore the situation. Amazingly, the audience doesn’t seem to care. I fear the worst. Maybe they don’t want to hear about it. Maybe they came to a comedy club to escape reality not relive it. Name is announced and it’s too late to worry. Open with, “Not only are the Taliban bloodthirsty and vicious, they’re stupid. I’m serious, if they wanted to destroy America’s financial stability, all they had to do was take out the IRS building and the country’s entire response would have been ... ‘Oh ... darn. Those bad guys. They did a mean thing. Better not try that again.’”

Crowd goes nuts. It’s like a pep rally for 40 minutes. It’s a cathartic release for both of us. Suddenly I’m a therapist. My mom would be proud. She always wanted a doctor.

Sept. 28, Panama City, Fla.

Absent.

A corporate gig (read: high-paying private gig) cancels. Group officials are worried a political comedian might be too stressful during these times and decides to go with “a happier act.” They hire a local banjo-playing ventriloquist. They’re right. I could never be that happy. Would love to just see the guy (does he play the banjo and the dummy sings, or vice versa or both?), but they agree to cover the airfare I’ve already shelled out and I stay home.

Oct. 18, Crystal City, Va.

Keynote speaking.

We start bombing Afghanistan. After appearing on “This Week With David Brinkley” without David Brinkley, Vice President Dick Cheney is frog-marched to a secure bunker in the southeast corner of Wyoming. Meanwhile Bush is giving a speech in front of a window. With traffic behind him. Why don’t they just tie him to a gate as bait? You know during the whole anthrax thing they had Bush opening Cheney’s mail. You know they did. You can’t make stuff up like this. Material works in front of this conference of government procurers. Everywhere except Midwest. Still too tough on president.

Nov. 22, Milwaukee.

Turkeying.

Nice to know some things never change. A sleazy weasel producer in my hometown rips me off for a couple grand. Six months later, he has yet to return my calls. This is the dark side of not having an agent or a manager: I eat the loss. Trying to think of the bright side of not having an agent or a manager ... oh yeah: 25% more to me. The truth is, none of the agencies is interested in a middle-aged political comic. In my mid-40s I’m already 21/2 decades too ancient for a development deal.

Funny, when I was young, we kids were shut out because they wanted experience and maturity. Ain’t life odd?

Dec. 26, Bay Area.

Touring.

Annual year-end review sells out four of seven shows in theaters with four other comics. Obviously, theaters are the way to reach my target demographic. Audiences for political material exist, but they’ve grayed and cocooned. No longer venturing into that nasty nether world of evil (three syllables like Bush) nightclubs. They’re theater people now, dahling. Start rethinking possibility of the one-man show idea. The Holy Grail of the aging comic. The problem is, a one-man show has to be set in stone, and political comedy is continually mutating. Oh good, another Catch-22.

Jan. 5, Improv, West Palm Beach, Fla.

Dying.

Killed by opening act. One of the new breed of uber-high-energy kids with the attention span of high-speed lint. Slaps his face, screams, spits, sweats, schleps around on imaginary horsies bellowing at the crowd. Closes his set by pouring an entire beer over his head. Extremely funny. Achingly funny. But now the stage is an irony-free zone. I have as much chance of following him as a wounded bunny has of surviving a starving cougar cage at an all-night disco under one of the bass amps. Like putting an acoustic act on after Metallica. Audience members are young too. They stare at me like I’m teaching particle physics to a gerbil. “Why is this bitter old man lecturing me?” Club owner says its the worst booking he’s ever made. Then he laughs. So do I. Only different-like. But they drink. And they drink.

And that’s the real bottom line in a nightclub. So I might get booked back.

Jan. 10, Improv, Lake Tahoe.

Turning a corner.

A funny thing is happening. The kids are getting it. They’re laughing at shared references. The “anti-Taliban” stuff and the “Cheney is really in charge” stuff is working. Maybe they never connected to politics before.

I’m a baby boomer. My parents laid it on with a trowel right from the start: “I grew up during a depression, then a World War. I’ll never forget where I was when Pearl Harbor was bombed.” We boomers tried the same thing: “I grew up during the Vietnam War, and we lost Bobby and Martin and Malcolm. I’ll never forget where I was when Kennedy was shot.” And the kids had nothing: “I grew up during CNN and MTV, and I’ll never forget where I was when Michael Jackson’s hair caught on fire. Those pitiful screams, ‘Tito, Tito’ and Tito never came.” The Crisis Envy has been bridged. Gens X and Y and maybe even Z have officially been grounded. Hell, I got five more years on the road, minimum.

Jan. 24, Improv, Washington, D.C.

Grinning.

While watching an NFL playoff game, Bush chokes on pretzel, meaning: He’s fair game again. “I mean, c’mon, even Gerald Ford could chew. I don’t believe the pretzel bit at all. His staff would never let him look ridiculous unless what really happened was even more ridiculous or crazy. My theory is he was taunting his dad for how much better his war was going and Bar hit him in the head with an empty gin bottle.” D.C. crowds eat it up.

Audiences full of sick, twisted, paranoid, cynical toads who read. My kind of people.

Jan. 28, Fairmont Hotel, San Francisco.

Killing.

At a Barbara Boxer fund-raiser, I tell a joke and kick the punch a second early, causing Bill Clinton to laugh so hard he spits water out his nose. I give the former president a sinus douche. He later explains to me why my Cheney joke is funny. This is so cool. Of course I don’t tell him when I worked at a George H.W. Bush benefit, I did all Clinton and Gore stuff. He’d understand. It’s all politics. Think locally. Laugh globally.

Feb. 22, Stanford & Sons Comedy Club, Kansas City, Mo.

Baby-sitting. Second show Friday night. The weekly Waterloo of every club in the country. They’ve worked all day, started drinking at 5 and by the time the headliner gets on stage, the house should furnish him with a torch, a chair and a whip. They don’t want political comedy. They want bright and loud, so I switch midstream and do a lot of pot jokes.

I’m not an artiste, I’m a craftsman. The only way I get hired back is if the audience laughs. They do. They even like my close, when I talk about how this is one resilient nation. Made it through two terms of Bill and eight years of Reagan. We’re more than a nation, we’re a notion. We’re an idea. The American Dream. You never heard of the Afghan Dream have you? Except by bearded hermetic recluses with a fetish for uneducated women dressed as giant shuttlecocks.

Shuttlecocks. I love that I get to say shuttlecocks on stage.

April 23, Home, San Francisco.

Resting.

Listen to first pressing of new CD taped at Cobb’s Comedy Club in beginning of February. Almost entirely new set since Minneapolis attempt a scant seven months ago. Never been this prolific before. Feel guilty for making hay after the tragic events of 9/11. Then again, it’s a responsibility as well. Comedy is defiance. It’s a snort of contempt in the face of fear and anxiety. And it’s the laughter that allows hope to creep back on the inhale.

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Will Durst is a political comedian whose CD, “You Can’t Make Stuff Up Like This,” will be available on the Laugh.com label in stores in May.