You know what’s Crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
Comedy Clubs.
It’s performance art that is like no other.
There is no set, no lighting, no special effects.
It’s one man on a stage using his brain, his words his body language, his life insights to make us think, to make us laugh.
I went to Zanies Comedy Club in Nashville, Saturday night.
I haven’t been to a comedy club for many years. When I was in L.A. I frequently went to the Improv and Comedy Store.
I saw Sam Kennison and Andrew Dice Clay and Jay Leno and Robin Williams.
I loved it because it was visceral, it was real.
Stand Up comedy is hot like touching a metal frying pan over a campfire.
The 1st thing I notice walking into this venerable establishment is the simplicity of the venue.
It’s austere. It’s a room without embellishment. It has all the personality of a Kardashian on prozac.
There is no flashing neon. No spinning lights.
The room has the ambiance of a funeral with an open casket.
There are 8 x 10 glossies of comedians past and present hanging on every available wall space.
Most of the pictures are of men and women who have spent a career roaming the back roads in zip codes searching out rat infested comedy dens across the USA.
The comedians pictured around me are the lifers, the comedic zombies who wander the Earth like the undead playing one show after another show.
These denizens of laughter do what they do because they are possessed, driven by a smile, a guttural chuckle.
They are story telling werewolves who howl at a full moon because it is in their DNA to get on stage and make people laugh.
But Zanies is a let down. It is Nashville’s comedy club.
Nashville is known for performance.
I just thought that Zanies would be more of a memorable venue.
NOPE.
The non descript building at 8th and Wedgewood could be a a bailbond office or abortion clinic.
It simply is unremarkable.
Yet when we show up, the line wraps around the block.
I wonder if there was a 2nd comedy club that had a neon sign and an ounce of show biz, I wonder how well it might do?
I continue my assessment of the room. It’s wall to wall worn carpet and spilled beer.
The stage against the rear wall is the empty room’s focal point.
It’s a black hole in need of a paint job. It’s so small, maybe 7 feet wide, I wonder how the performer will navigate it.
The stage is barely above the tables.
It’s like a wooden island, floating in a sea of visual boredom.
Talk about decoration by subtraction, the stage is surrounded by a black curtain. It appears to be thick, like felt, the kind of material you might find in an old movie theater.
Again, the stage is desolate. Light goes there to die. Nothing is creative, nothing is alive. It is a wasteland of visuals shot in black and white.
There’s no neon. There’s no signage reminding us we’re at Zanies. There is only a bright spot light. There is but a single microphone. This has all the warmth of a fall out bunker.
There’s a two drink minimum. I half way expect to order an MRE with my fried pickles.
How much would a painted sign that says ZANIES cost?
How much would a flat screen run them?
No video, not projection screen.
NOTHING.
We could be in a Uhaul warehouse for all I know.
This room is so unassuming it it is so mundane. It has the toxicity of whole milk.
Around 9:15 pm, the show starts with a garbled announcement about parking and tow trucks will tow you.
Suddenly a man is on stage, warming us up, I presume.
It takes me a moment to adjust to him. I am still wondering if I’m getting towed.
So who is this guy? is he the opening act? Is he with Zanies?
He is telling jokes. He is talking about his child’s hot elementary school teacher and his raging hard on.
I’m laughing.
Must be the opening act I muse.
Turns out I’m wrong.
“Now let’s welcome to the stage Jiffy Wild.
We’re told he is talented. We are told he is on E television.
He’s a pasty faced white guy. He has a guitar. He has a sloppy hair do and some hipster clothes.
He is as visually dynamic as white paint on a white canvas.
He steps on the stage and begins his set.
“Hey Nashville, how ya all doing?”
It’s one pasty face white guy on a stage with a spot light.
The crowd wants to laugh. We’ve paid almost 50 dollars to get in. We need to laugh. But you don’t want to feel like it’s our job to force it.
Jiffy has to earn it.
He knows it.
He strums his guitar and sings about having a small penis.
He sings about having a 4-year-old who asks if he will die.
He’s a man on an island of entertainment. He has to use his brain, his mouth, his words, his music.
Within 5 minutes we are a captive audience.
His humor has brought color to this wasteland of nothing. In the midst of a non-existent set, he paints a visual of color and concepts that make my brain sizzle.
His humor is off-color, but it is vivid and engaging. He is the art work on this barren canvas.
His words are about topics we understand like parenting. His songs are musical interludes about sex and date night with his wife.
He fills the 7 feet of stage and he makes us want to watch, to be glad we spent our money for a night at a tiny box with dirty carpets.
Then the headliner hits the stage.
His name is Josh Wolf.
He’s as anonymous as the new leader of Al Qaida.
He is the headliner, but I have no idea. We look at each other with a blankness.
I like the opening guy. I wish he would sing more sex songs about dating his wife.
Josh Wolf’s bio indicates he has written for television shows. I have not heard of these shows.
His bio indicates he is a best-selling author with his book: It Takes Balls: Dating Single Moms and Other Confessions from an Unprepared Single Dad.
Again, I’m not sure this is on the New York Times Best Seller list.
Wolf comes out strong and fast. He is cocky, arrogant.
He immediately insults the crowd telling us that he’s been to drug deals with more people than are in this room.
I feel like saying “hey Wolf. If we knew who you were, perhaps, more people would be here tonight.”
I refrain. Rule one of a comedy show; don’t heckle the comic.
He has the power. He has the mic.
I did go to the comedy store once with a friend who was hammered.
He sat in the front row and he banged his forearms on the stage.
The girl opening up the show was trying to deal with my friend, but he was a drunken idiot. The normal zingers that put most hecklers in their place were useless.
My friend was immune to a taser that night. I am sure that a little comedian saying you have a small penis wasn’t going to stop this drunken moron.
I think we were asked to either calm down or leave by the staff.
Josh Wolf then continues his act picking on a group of women in the audience who are all wearing sashes that say bachelorette party.
The girls came into his comedic cross hairs when they cheered too loudly.
Woo Hoo.
“That’s the Woo Hoo white girl cry,” he says drawing a few chuckles.
He is abrasive and surly and begins his set with marijuana paranoia.
He makes me laugh when he says he is so high that he parks and walks up to the four-way stop to see if it’s ok to proceed.
That’s pretty funny.
As he gets on track, he begins to get my attention.
He is pacing the empty stage like a caged cat.
There is nothing to look at but him. He is lean and wearing jeans and baseball hat.
He has shaggy brown hair and a scruffy beard.
Using his voice and his words he paints a portrait filling in the color that is other wise lacking.
Compared to the guitar playing comedian, this guy is pushing the envelope of rude and rank.
He talks about old man balls and premature ejaculation and diarrhea while driving.
At one point he stops his routine to yell at a patron near the stage. The bald man is talking to loudly and interrupting the comedian. “Use your inside voice dude. If I can hear you and I’m up here, then you are way too loud. Wolf rips into the patron calling him “Mr. Clean.”
It’s funny, but uncomfortable.
He has some hilarious bits about romantic comedies being impossible for men to live up to.
He specifically blames Matthew McConaughey for glistening.
“F You Matthew McConaughey.”
“It’s not easy to make love in the shower,” He says “It hurts. All that water. You’d think it would be smooth. But it’s like making love to a garden hose,” he says to laughter. “And then she’s hot and I’m cold. And my boobs are burning and my ass is freezing. And it’s like you are ice skating trying to push-off on anything,” he says acting out the sex act in the shower with his wife.
Just a man, a microphone and a pretend shower. But I can see it.
Zanies is smart. They don’t need decorations. They hire the right guys who paint the picture in my head.
It’s very funny stuff. It’s rank and raw and dirty and you can’t help but laugh.
But it’s the ability of these comedians to stand in front of the crowd armed with nothing more than their words and thoughts that impresses me most.
I leave the cement box with a worn carpet and tired drapes.
The building on 8th and Wedgewood has a new meaning for me now.
Life’s Crazy™