Crimmins Occupies Boston

Barry Crimmins is back in town today for a run of shows, including the Roast of Barry Crimmins, part of the Boston Comedy Festival schedule tonight. A bunch of Crimmins' old friends, and a few newer ones, will be on hand at the Charles Playhouse Lounge for that, including Steven Wright, Steve Sweeney, Jimmy Tingle, Tony V, Dan Wasserman, Mike McDonald, Niki and Lainey of The Steamy Bohemians, Randy Credico, Billy Bob Neck, and John Ennis. Before that, though, he'll be out at Occupy Boston at 4PM to address the crowd.

On Saturday, you'll get to see Crimmins at his best, doing a headlining set at the New England Folk Music Archives in Somerville, at the Arts at the Armory Space on Highland Ave. That show is the official kickoff of Crimmins "Occupation: Occupation" tour. It'll be his first full-length show in Boston since last year's shows with Erin Judge and Dennis Perrin at Mottley's. Billy Bob Neck and Tim Mason are also on that bill.

And if you want to see Crimmins one more time before he heads out of town, he's part of a phenomenal bill for the Friend of Mine: Tribute to Bill Morrissey show at the Somerville Theatre on Thursday, November 17. I'm not sure if this is the complete line-up, but so far that show will include Peter Case, Shawn Colvin, David Johansen, Mark Erelli, John Gorka, Peter Keane, Fred Koller, Cormac McCarthy (the musician), PAtty Larkin, and Pete Nelson. The night will be hosted by Cliff Eberhardt and David Dye. Mr. Morrissey died of heart failure in July. It's easy to see his influence, as a musician and as a friend, just by looking at that list.

We're lucky to have Crimmins for so many shows, and that he's still standing to do them after a recent accident precipitated by his dogs, Lettie and Lu, trying to draw and quarter him on a walk near his Upstate New York home. Here's Crimmins' recounting of that story, and a bit more about the shows, from his blog.

From the Archives: Bill Morrissey and Barry Crimmins

Barry Crimmins and Bill Morrissey played two shows together in 2006 at Jimmy Tingle's Off Broadway Theater in Davis Square - Morrissey and Crimmins: Two Lives Only! I was still writing the weekly Comedy Notes column for the Boston Globe at that time, and one thing I always enjoyed doing was stretching the subject matter outside the bounds of what people would normally expect to see under the word "Comedy." This show was a perfect example.

Crimmins and Morrissey were both masters of their respective arts, comedy and folk music. And Morrissey had a great sense of humor that was perhaps more obvious onstage than on the studio albums. I got to explore Morrissey's work and have a great conversation with him.

Since then, I had always hoped I'd have the chance to speak with Morrissey again. So it was with great sadness that I learned of his death on July 23. He passed away in a Georgia hotel room while touring. But I'm grateful for the one conversation, and that I got to see him on a wonderful night with Crimmins. The following is a greatly expanded version of the Comedy Notes column I wrote for the Boston Globe, originally published May 5, 2006.

It should be noted that this piece doesn't come close to the emotional resonance of Crimmins' remembrance from his blog, Farewell, Hercules... Bill Morrissey 1951-2011. A highly recommended read.

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Longtime friends meet again, onstage

Barry Crimmins and Bill Morrissey bring a bit of Boston history with them tonight and tomorrow when they hit the stage at Jimmy Tingle's Off Broadway. Between the two of them, they've seen or inspired some of Boston's best and brightest in comedy and music.

But since Crimmins now lives just outside of Bath, New York and Morrissey in New Hampshire, they haven't played Boston together since the early nineties. "We're both Boston guys, so meeting up in Boston is the greatest," says Crimmins. We both made our stones in that town."

When they first met at a hip basement club off Harvard Square called the Idler almost twenty-five years ago, they had just started to establish themselves in their respective fields. Crimmins was the creative force behind the Ding Ho, the epicenter of Boston comedy that produced luminaries like Steven Wright and Lenny Clarke. Morrissey was on his way towards recording the music that would lead Ted Drozdowski of the Boston Phoenix to call him the "musical poet laureate of New England."

Crimmins was drawn to Morrissey's writing and sense of humor, and was surprised to find Morrissey had seen him perform at the Ding Ho. Once they started talking, they found they both had an appreciation for the folk work ethic and progressive politics. "I think we're sort of, even though Bill's certainly not overtly political, his work is kind to the little guy and stands up to the big guy, and I'd like to think that's what my work's about," says Crimmins. "I always talked about doing comedy with a big target, and I've never enjoyed people who just, you know, make fun of [the little guy]. Bill's the kind of guy that if he sees a homeless guy, something will soak in and three days later there'll be a genius song about the guy. He finds a context for the humanity of people that might otherwise be overlooked. He sticks up for regular people. His work really notices that their lives matter. That's pretty great."

Crimmins and Morrissey are also considered great writers in their respective fields, although Crimmins would give Morrissey the advantage there. Where Crimmins sticks to nonfiction and current culture, Morrissey can get to truth by creating stories and characters with a master's eye for detail. "One of his songs is like a great novel," says Crimmins. "In one song he gets so much texture, so much character, he has such an eye. And then the other thing, of course he's a folk musician, but if you listen to what he's been doing over the past several years, he always grows musically. He's always adding stuff. And it's because he's not just home listening to Pete Seeger albums. He has wonderful other influences. He knows the blues backwards and forwards, he knows jazz, he knows everything."

Morrissey would agree that he and Crimmins share a sense of politics, but Morrissey thinks Crimmins' humor can cross political lines. "Although Barry is to the left, as I am, his humor will make conservatives laugh," he says. "You know, he's certainly not afraid to poke fun at the left. And I've sat there with very conservative people in his audience and they didn't wanna like him. But despite what they wanted, they did and they were laughing. Which I think is the sign of a great comic, a man whose got a great perspective. Barry just doesn't go out and preach to the converted, which would be a very easy gig. You know, folk singers do that, too. Political folks singers. Just go out and sing to their audience."

Stylistically speaking, it's easy for a musician to preach to the converted, as well, chasing whatever sound is topping the charts. Morrissey has never approached music that way. He has stories to tell and a particular sound, all of which exist outside the bubble of popular music. "There's a lot of pandering," he says. "In music, it seems like people listen to the radio and try to imitate that just to get airplay. I just never did that. The reason I write, I just write with complete disregard to what's popular or what's not popular, what's passé or what hasn't happened yet."

If his sound changes, it's because he's made a discovery that could fall anywhere on the musical spectrum, beyond era or genre. Morrissey likes to explore. "I don't listen to just folk music," he says. "I listen to a lot of jazz, a lot of classic jazz. I listen to old country, because there really isn't any new country. I listen to country and western, and nowadays the closest you can get to that is country and suburban. I listen to classical. I just have an appreciation for good songwriting, or just good musicianship. I'm more than happy to just listen to Lester Young playing with Count Bassie."

It's not surprising, then, to hear Morrissey describe Crimmins' comedy in terms of music. He loves Crimmins' politics and his energy. He even jokingly frets about having to follow Crimmins at this weekend's shows. "He's just a roman candle onstage," says Morrissey. "He's his own Chicago blues band. He was just this unstoppable force."

"What he does and what I think a good musician does, a good songwriter grabs you by the lapels and says, 'Look, I've got to tell you something right now,'" he adds. :And he doesn't have to yell at you but he's got that urgency. As opposed to, 'Oh listen, I was just thinking, I want to talk to you about something.' It's like, 'No man, I've got to tell you this right now.' That's how Barry I think approaches his performing."

Crimmins is equally complimentary. "Actually, I don't think it's fair," he says. "His sense of humor is as good as mine and I can't carry a tune in a wheelbarrow. So it's really unfair. At least he doesn't rub in the fact that he's multi-talented and I'm semi-talented."

"I had one of his CDs in the car the other day," says Crimmins, "and I was listening about the immigration stuff, and I happen to hear his song 'The Man From Out of Town' - 'The laws are not made for the man from out of town.' And I thought, gee, you could translate that song into Spanish and it would really speak to that situation."



Though humor is an important part of Morrissey's show, offsetting his more somber songwriting, he says he could never do what Crimmins does. "I do incorporate a lot of comedy in what I do, but I would never get onstage without a guitar," he says. "I guess that's my security blanket. And I just enjoy the history of comedy, going back to Lenny Bruce and Lord Buckley and of course Jack Benny and people like that. Obscure people like Joe Ancis."

The mutual admiration society has continued throughout the years as the two have gigged together whenever possible and catch up when they are playing the same cities. "When he and I get together, the stories start coming out," says Crimmins. "They get better as you forget the details, because we're both writers and creative, and you know... you fill in the blank spots, it really moves it along."

Both have grown since their early Boston days. Morrissey is now a Grammy-nominated songwriter with ten albums and a novel to his credit. His eleventh is expected to be released on Rounder in September. Crimmins is one of the country's premiere political satirists, writing daily for "The Rhandi Rhodes Show" on Air America and working on an essay-driven book for the radio network.

"Bill and I are the same way in that we both have set the proverbial bar high enough for ourselves that we force ourselves to push and hustle every day," says Crimmins. "Not out of ambition but out of need to protect and continue our art."

Guest Blogger: Scorpion Bowls & Punch Lines

Lucas Lewis Week continues with this piece on Boston's tradition of comedy in Chinese restaurants. - Nick

By Lucas Lewis

BOSTON — There’s something about Chinese restaurants that seems to bring out the best — and the worst — in Boston comedy.

Back in 1979, it was Barry Crimmins establishing the first full-time comedy club in town at the now-legendary — and now-defunct — Ding Ho in Inman Square. Today there’s the Comedy Studio at the Hong Kong in Cambridge, perhaps the most revered and respected comedy club in New England (see “The Studio”).

But across town, in the shadow of Fenway Park, there’s a lesser-known venue forging the Chinese comedy connection: Grandma’s Basement, an intimate lounge connected to a Chinese restaurant at the Howard Johnson Hotel. In Boston, as elsewhere, comics congregate around the shows they can get on — mostly small showcases and open mics. Grandma’s has the added allure of being a small room (a dozen people makes the 44-capacity room look full) run by one of their own, and as a result it has become one of the premier hangouts for local comedians in the past year.

Bar manager and sometimes host Benny Bosh (nee’ Boshnak), who shares booking, hosting and bartending duties with fellow comic Tom Dunlap, is happy that this happened when it did.

“We’ve grown in popularity at a perfect rate alongside our — mine and Tom’s — comedy performance,” Bosh says. “That is to say, I’m glad it wasn't this popular a year ago, because then I would've looked like a complete idiot on stage. Now I just kind of look like one.”

The insider cache — along the Chinese restaurant bit — is a marked similarity to the Ding Ho, which Crimmins designed to be a comedy clubhouse. “The secret of the Ding was that it was of, by, and for comics,” he wrote in a 1999 retrospective for The Boston Phoenix. “The Ding treated all its acts like stars. Comics didn't pay for drinks — ever. They could put anyone they liked on the guest list.”

Grandma’s Basement has other parallels to the Ding Ho, too. On Fridays and Saturdays, Bosh or Dunlap are usually behind the bar, slinging strong — and on occasion free or discounted — drinks to the comics assembled.

A typical weekend show (which is canceled when the Red Sox have a home game that starts later than 1 p.m.) will feature around 10 comedians doing 5-7 minutes apiece, though there are exceptions: Earlier this year, local comedian Shawn Donovan recorded his first album, Few Mourn, at Grandma’s Basement.

“Donovan’s album recording I still think of as one of our greatest successes as a comedy venue,” Bosh says. “He is without a doubt one of my favorite comics in Boston and in comedy, and I’m so happy he got that out there and I was able to help achieve that.”

As for Chinese restaurants bringing out the worst in Boston comedy? The Ding Ho was as notorious as it was noteworthy, with comedians nearly running the place into the ground with their bar tabs and after-hours shenanigans. Grandma’s Basement hardly ever approaches that level of debauchery, but The Phoenix did recently dub Thursday’s open mic “The Best Worst Night of Comedy” in Boston for 2011.

Bosch, who hosts most Thursdays, wears the distinction as a badge of honor.

Erin Judge on Barry Crimmins, Vanity Fair, and The Dress Up Show

Erin Judge at Mottley's
tonight with Barry Crimmins

In a post on his Vanity Fair blog touting the Barry Crimmins shows tonight and tomorrow with Dennis Perrin and Erin Judge, James Wolcott said of Judge that she “has red hair, the sure sign of a provocateur.” Wolcott is only hinting at what Boston comedy audiences have known for years about Judge, who started her comedy career in Boston before moving to New York.

It’s a fitting show for Judge, who has a strong political viewpoint reflected in her material. This will be her first time getting to see Crimmins, a master satirist going back to the beginning of his career in Boston in the 80s, working live.

“I've never worked with him, but I've seen plenty of clips, and I've read his blog and his writing,” she says. “I think our political views are very in sync. I'm so excited to see his longer performances this weekend.”

Crimmins and Perrin will both be talking politics, three days after mid-term elections. Judge plans to join the fray. “I'm definitely planning to be political,” she says. “Watch out, Tories! Actually, I do have some political stuff I'm excited to bring out. About, you know, American politics.”

She’ll also be at Mottley’s again next week in a much different context, The Dress Up Show she co-hosts with Bethany Van Delft. The show is going well enough that Judge and Van Deft are looking to expand. “We haven't quite found the perfect venue in New York City yet,” says Judge. “We're working hard to figure that out for the new year.”

And yes, Judge was excited to see her name on the Vanity Fair site. “I never thought I'd get into Vanity Fair without first dating an heiress, or at least hitting one with my car.”

The Boston Comedy Interview: Barry Crimmins

Barry Crimmins

“I’m whatever threatens you.” – Barry Crimmins.

If there’s one line Crimmins has ever uttered that sums up his attitude toward political satire and his career, that is it. The line was provided in answer to a bunch of Crimmins’ old friends from Upstate New York who, upon finding out he had done a benefit for AIDS victims, asked if he were “queer.”

Crimmins doesn’t back down. But he did take a three-and-a-half year break from the stage to write his blog, a break he had intended to make his retirement from regular live performing. But he is back Friday and Saturday at Mottley’s. Boston was the town where Crimmins went through a personal comedy renaissance at the Ding Ho, and he, in turn, helped create a comedy renaissance for Boston, setting standards as a booker and a performer.

He’ll have his friend, author and comedian Dennis Perrin, and Erin Judge with him on the bill. You can also hear him on WFNX Friday morning around 8AM. I spoke with Crimmins by phone earlier this week.

Why come out of retirement now after three and a half years?

Because I foresaw what was going to happen in this election and I knew saps would come out and pay money now to hear me. I knew it would be a good time to fleece the rubes.

Is that generally what you think stand-up has become?

Rube fleecing? Well, if I want to work locally, that’s certainly what it is, considering where I reside. There’s an element of that, I suppose, but in a nice way. You want them to be fleeced by someone good who is going to leave them with a good, positive message. Come back, when I say.

This is going to be fun. All joking aside, I’m really looking forward to seeing everyone. [Read: sarcasm] Make sure everybody come up and talk to me.

Was there anything in particular about Mottley’s that made you make that the first club you’re going to play?

They asked me when they started out if I ever came back if I would do a thing at their joint, so I said sure. And then I checked around, and there was a good word on them taking care of comics. And so I want to support that. I want to support how they are doing things there. It’s not quite a co-op but it’s getting that way. They take care of the comics, and I think people develop better when they’re taken care of, when they’re treated with a kind of respect. In this business, respect has everything to do with handing you some money. Everything else is just lip service. What those lips are servicing and where they’re servicing it, I don’t know. But the preface “auto” might be involved.

There’s a lot I know you don’t like about the club scene and stand-up comedy in general –

And you know, I think that’s an excellent preface. It makes me seem so warm and engaging. So thank you.

But I wanted to ask, is there anything positive you see or anything to build on?

Well, of course. It’s fine. It’s the old painter’s colic thing. There used to be lead in paint, and a guy would paint for years and then all of a sudden open a can up and start puking, because the cumulative effect of the lead had caught up with him or her, but they were men who were painters in those days, basically, and they would just start puking. There’s a certain toxicity to being around an industry full of people desperate to make it. One too many cans of desperation get opened near you, you might start puking. But I think they have very good ventilation at Mottley’s and there should be no problem.

How did you pick who was going to be on the show with you, Dennis Perrin and Erin Judge?

I engaged the New York State Lottery to run the whole thing for me. I have an accounting firm that can talk to you. Perrin, I’m just calling his bluff. “I’m doing comedy! I know comedy! Comedy comedy comedy!” And I know he does, but it’s fun calling your friend’s bluff. So that’s what that is. And then Erin, as soon as she was available, start a baseball team, if you can get Stan Musial on it, you’re gonna get Stan Musial. If Stan Musial was available. I think that’s probably the first time she’s been compared to Stan Musial.

Most probably, yes.

I also like the fact that you probably have to go out and probably figure out how to spell his name.

How are you preparing for your first shows back?

I’m just going to let it go. It’s not… You get me three days after an election, obviously people expect me to have something to say about that. That’s going to be new. You know, I think I still sort of know how to stand out there, and I have a general idea where we’re going. And then we see what we can do. What I’m going to try to do is organize a series of humorous things that will build to the point where everybody thinks it was a good idea for me to be the center of attention. And then leave to tremendous applause and acclaim.

That’s how I’m preparing for it. That’s the result I’m working for. Now, occasionally, you may have to bargain down a little bit. “Well, it didn’t take that many stitches…” But who knows. The sky’s the limit. I know with Perrin and judge there, I’m just the icing on the cake.

I know when we’ve spoken before, you’ve been somewhat wary of people bringing up the Ding Ho and bringing up the past –

The Ding Ho was great and I don’t want to denounce it or whatever, but it’s just sort of this permanent Little League reunion I’m supposed to be at. Or the permanent reuonion of my really good high school team. I love the people that were on that tea, I love how we did, how thing worked out, how a lot of people from that team went on to be very successful pro players. And people who work in the front office and so on. Other elements of the game, coaching, et cetera. The Ding’s great. But I just don’t think about it very much anymore. It’s a long time ago. And I’m a lot more interested in what’s going on now.

And when I think about the Ding, theoretically, I know a lot more now and there’s stuff I would have done differently. It worked out well, but to me, I know some of the mistakes that were made some things that probably could have been done differently and I also know about some stuff that was really frustrating that nothing could have been done about. I don’t know how many other people have something that happens that early on that they always are asked to return to. I suppose it’s true of performers and athletes. It’s very understandable. And I really appreciate that people remember and love the Ding Ho. But it doesn’t have a lot to do with what I’m doing now. It provided a big foot through the door, and then I went through the door, and I’ve done a lot of other things since then.

I think from my point of view, writing about comedy, I can see it’s an era that people care about, it’s an era that probably some people are tired of hearing about, but then on the other hand, there are probably an awful lot of comics out there now, and audience members, who really don’t know anything about it.

Right. And that’s okay. I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of people at this show – well, I hope there’s going to be a lot of people at these shows – who don’t know much or care much about the Ding Ho. What they’re going to care about it whether or not I’m funny and if I have anything to say that’s edifying. And that’s good. That’s as it should be.

Here’s the thing about the Ding Ho. Great for everybody and everyone else and however much they want to talk about it. But man, I have gotten more than my share of credit for the Ding Ho and I’m a little uncomfortable sitting around taking any more bows for it. Thanks. It was a long time ago. I was bluffing. I pulled it off. When I started that place I was basically homeless. It was a total, like, dance my way out of a corner operation, and it worked. I had a good idea of what I thought would be fair for comics because I was a comic, and that’s basically what went on at the Ding.

In that sense, a place like Mottley’s, there’s a certain tuning fork that goes off when hear about it. They are trying to do something like that, so that’s good. I mean, anyone who would come to see me because of the Ding Ho – Ronald Reagan isn’t president anymore. I’ve got other things to say.

Do you think that sort of spirit of a club is possible these days in the current club environment?

I don’t know. I don’t know about that. That’s up to people who are going to be in these clubs and really make them what they are. I’ll just pass through, more or less. There’s never going to be a situation where I’m out in the clubs all the time anymore. I’ll show up and have something to say sometimes. Really, you’d be better talking to Steven Wright or somebody else who walks into clubs all the time. I think the Ding Ho was necessary. I don’t know that it was ever possible.

You left the club scene a while back anyway, correct?

Basically, I got out of comedy clubs in 1988. I did a tour with Jackson Browne, and it was just really hard to return to Yukheads after that. I played these really big, really smart crowds, and I think this is changing quite a bit these days, because I think a lot of young, hip stuff has happened and clubs are better to some extent. But there was a large period of time when the comedy club crowd and the professional wrestling audience was really hard to distinguish. I don’t think that’s so true now. I think now it’s much harder to distinguish the professional wrestling crowd from the American voter. Except in Connecticut, where we’ll give them some credit.

Here’s what I’m tired of in the American political system, and that is the “either/or-ness.” Either/or makes it seem like you have this great choice, but really, it’s this narrow choice of two things in a world full of possibilities. And I guess I wish there were a more parliamentary type of government where we included a broader spectrum. And I think that since McCarthyism has been around, there’s been no real viable left in the United States except during Nam. And we benefited from that. Because at that time, the 60s and 70s, we got civil rights, gay rights, a lot of human rights type stuff, environmentalism really sort of took a big step forward. So I think we benefitted a lot from that one brief period when there was a more viable left in this country.

But there’s all these experts telling Obama now that, oh, he hasn’t been moderate enough, and he compromised with these people forever, he paid off the big fat cats with the money that we needed to bail out everybody. This election was really about people who lost their jobs, who were running out of unemployment, who are scared of foreclosure, and they don’t have any rich relatives to bail them out. Or at least that will bail them out. And they’re facing that, or they’re feeling that, or they’re seeing that happen to their friends. And we get Christine O’Donnell in detail.

If and until the electoral politics care more about the real situation, in places like Detroit where there’s literally missionaries from other countries right now, until it considers how many people are ruined, until this country acknowledges that in this late-stage capitalism, we are facing a situation where, the problem with our system is, it runs on screwing people over, and they’re running out of people to screw over. Which is why you can go and see entire cities and towns, states that are just wiped out. And unlike the last depression, the infrastructure to get back to work isn’t necessarily remaining. Because it’s been slow motion in a lot of places. You’re from Upstate New York – how long have they been dismantling this area?

Here I get to the essence, and here’s the real secret to why I’m coming back. We need real hope, not fake hope. We don’t need sloganeering hope. We need real hope, and I think where there’s art, there’s hope. And I would like to be part of a movement of people that promotes the idea of a Renewed Deal. I’ve been talking about this for a long time but I think it’s more important than ever. A Renewed Deal where we begin to take back a lot of what’s sort of decaying and rotten and abandoned in this country and make it something useful again.

So you build arts centers and you build training centers. You can take an old warehouse, and in it, you can start recycling computers, you could build a little theater in there. You could build art studios. You could do a bunch of stuff. And the government should be helping out on that. And then people come and do stuff, and then the next thing you know, some restaurants open in the neighborhood. Other things happen. You have life again on Main Street.

The reason I want to do this is, I don’t want to perform in strip malls anymore. I want to perform in downtown. And I want to give other people the chance to perform in downtown and I want to create centers everywhere around the country where people can get together and talk to one another about what’s real without being influenced by a bunch of sloganeering attack ads from television. Because the big winner n the political ad war this year was TiVo. Things are already bad enough. Who wants the hear the rest of that crap? Even if a lot of it’s true, it’s just so sinister and foreboding. And in the end, they basically are taking checks from the same people. In many cases, anyway.

And these Tea Party people, they’re just frustrated and inarticulate and getting taken along for a ride. They’re window dressing. What really spoke in this election wasn’t the people, it was gigantic amounts of money. Which there still are in this country, it’s just more and more concentrated. We’re still one of the most wealthy places in the world. It’s just that all the money is concentrated among fewer and fewer people.

So when you perform and when you write, is there an educational and informational element to it?

Even if there is, please don’t tell them. Get used to the mediciny taste! It’s not so bad!

The first thing I do, things just kind of come to me. Then I have to figure out what else they’re near, what else they’re like. Did somebody else say this? What’s the story? It has to get past that committee where it’s sort of like, okay, it’s relatively original. And then the final thing is, am I picking on something that’s… Really, I haven’t been onstage since Sarah Palin showed up. I will have something to say about her. And I couldn’t think less of her. But picking on her, there’s not going to be anybody at my show who’s like, “Well, I kinda like Sarah Palin.” I don’t really need to pile on. Maybe I find a couple of things. But it’s sort of like hammering televangelists in a barroom. Well, everybody’s already drinking.

I may challenge the audience the audience a bit, or I have a little bit of a different opinion or I have a bit of a different idea. I’m probably more than ever asking more questions than providing very serious and specific answers. And I think it’s important to ask a lot of questions these days, because by doing that, you’re defining the boundaries of the discussion rather than having it limited to, “Hey, did you hear Rush Limbaugh’s an asshole!” No kidding.

Do you think to some extent these easy targets are set up as such to bait people?

Because it limits the discussion. Exactly. If we’re sitting around all day talking about Christine O’Donnell or, wow, Ann Coulter’s a jerk, or Rush Limbaugh said something I couldn’t believe, and Fox News seems really not to be fair and balanced – There’s people out there who spend their whole lives trying to prove to other people that Fox News isn’t fair and balanced. What I suggest to anyone who thinks Fox News is fair and balanced is to turn on Fox News at any moment during the day and see how fair and balanced they are. If you think that what they’re telling you is fair and balanced, because they keep saying “fair and balanced,” you probably also buy a lot of “new and improved” products. “Wow, this pantyhose grips better than it ever has!” You know, you believe in everything.

That makes the work of a satirist that much harder, when you have to go for something that perhaps the audience might not be that familiar with.

Not really. If you want to take people somewhere… It’s my job to sort of take them somewhere. And so if I have to be a bit of a tour guide and explain where we’re going first, that’s just a chance to say a few more humorous things and provide some context and then there we go. I don’t see it as a big deal at all. The biggest problem is people who are all revved up and want me to help them prove that Glenn Beck’s a schmuck. Okay. Yeah, I know that. And he’s dangerous. Well, yes, on a certain level, he’s quite dangerous, on another level, he becomes more dangerous the more we base our lives around him. Glenn Beck wants us to talk about him.

When you’re looking at harder issues and you’re looking at things like, as you said, missionaries coming to Detroit, that’s not a particularly easy thing to make light of or to find laughs in.

Of course it isn’t because most people don’t live in Detroit, so they’ll just think it’s just Detroit. The point is, everywhere’s turning into Detroit. And that’s the problem. Every closed factory is just another little piece of Detroit. Or Camden. Or Derry. Or Buffalo. You name it, all over the country.

With that many problems that run that deep, and your job is to go out and make people laugh at it.

But not frivolously. My job is to maybe smuggle* some content to them while they’re being entertained. My job is also to not take myself too ridiculously serious. Like this thing, how overblown can we get? Mottley’s is a little place, I hope we fill it up. My first concern is, I’ll tell you what, the reason I’m off doing these shows is because I have to make a buck, because when I left, I had producers, I had editors, who had work for me. And within a year of me leaving stand-up, all those people got laid off. And they became freelancers. Well, guess who gets the gig first? And I don’t blame ‘em for it.

And then you had the Huffington Post turn the entire Internet into a volunteer writing zone. Where they talk about, paying writers isn’t in our financial model. Well who’s your financial model, Kunta Kinte? Then I have to see Arianna Huffington on TV speaking for the workers.

I just wrote this thing about, when I really got into comedy in earnest it was when I realized I probably wasn’t going to get a job in radio. Because when I went to get a job in radio, they had just been through a 65-year hiring spree for white guys. So I had to literally pay for the sins of the fathers, the great white fathers. And I wasn’t really upset about it, I met this musician, Root Boy Slim, who said, “Be a minstrel, that’s what black guys always had to do.” And there I am. I’m a minstrel with absolutely no musical talent.

But I try to do what Root Boy Slim suggested and that was win people over and earn my living one audience at a time. So I’m looking forward to doing these shows. It should be a lot of fun and a lot of laughs. Really a lot of laughs. I know Perrin is going to be hilarious. Erin Judge, I’ve only seen her on TV and the Internet, but she’s just really funny. Mottley’s clearly has a really good vibe to it. And a lot of old friends are going to be showing up. It seems like a real good combination of things happening. The only one who can really screw it up is me. But I have great faith in myself.

*Correction - Due to a transcript error, this original read "struggle," which may also have been appropriate in spirit, but was not what was said.  

The Boston Comedy Interview: Author and comedian Dennis Perrin



Dennis Perrin, author and comedian

Dennis Perrin has an uneasy relationship with stand-up comedy. He came to it on a winding path, starting his writing career with the Army after high school. He was actually gung ho to join, he says, an “apolitical liberal” and “raised among rednecks” in Indiana. His drill sergeants tried to get him to go to officer’s school, but the Army also introduced him to drugs, which helped to ease the friction of the Army’s particular cultural cliques.
“I was a freelancer,” he says. “I didn’t belong to any tribe.”

Perrin is still a freelancer, and still not a member of any particular tribe. He found comedy as a writer and a performer, writing for Ray Combs, Sr., and writing a marvelously detailed book about Saturday Night Live’s subversive genius, Michael O’Donoghue called Mr. Mike: The Man Who Made Comedy Dangerous. He is left-leaning, but his polemic, Savage Mules: The Democrats and Endless War, and his blog are not exactly kind to Democrats and liberals.

He is back into performing again, working on something he just calls "The Project," which will involve stand-up, the blog, and a new book. He'll be appearing with Barry Crimmins Friday and Saturday at Mottley’s doing a guest set on Crimmins’ first live show in three and a half years. I caught up with him by phone earlier this week.

What made you decide to come back to performing live?

I was watching more and more stand-up for some reason. I had tuned it out for years, because I just didn’t like what was happening. The rise of Dane Cook and Larry the Cable Guy. It was just like, you know, I’m tuning this out. There’s got to be more edifying cultural expression. There wasn’t much, but I figured I wasn’t going to find it in stand-up.

And also, over the years, I did do occasional stand-up bits for local anti-war or progressive political fundraisers. And I would do specific political material – register to vote, things like that. I did a bunch of those. But it wasn’t like an ongoing thing. They would say, hey, we’re having this fundraiser, can you do ten minutes or fifteen minutes, and I said sure. And then I would write a set just for that one appearance and that would be it. I’d never use the material again. And that was more memorized. I memorized everything. I wrote it out, memorized and rehearsed it. So it was more by wrote.

But I was watching more and more of the stand-up and I was just feeling comedic again. I just was. I’ve always been this way, I’ve gone in and out of it throughout my life. Especially at certain key moments where I could have been locked in for good or for a long time. So I think I just wanted to do comedy on my terms, and so that’s why I drifted in and out of it.

The drift I was getting this time was very strong, and that’s when I made the connection between not just doing political or satirical material, which is my forte, it’s what I’m good at, but also bringing in the personal, autobiographical aspect that ties into that, as well, because I have been in a lot of interesting situations. Instead of my just observing commercials on TV or politicians on the Web or something, I looked to integrate my own personal experiences in this culture as comedy. And that, to me, was different. And there was an autobiographical element to it, because now I’m 51. So, you know, I have a lit of material to work with and I’ve done a lot of different things.

The clincher was, and this is the honest to god truth, I watched the Judd Apatow movie Funny People, and while the second half of that movie turned into dumb romantic comedy with Adam Sandler as the odd man out and Seth Rogen as his one true love, the first part of it, while they were showing the stand-up and all the young stand-ups and everything, weirdly enough it just energized me. I said, if this is what stand-up is, I’ll have no problem getting back into it.

Now, that was arrogance of my age and my experience, but also just not being in the loop comedically, directly. Of course, that was dramatizing the LA comedy scene, which I have not yet participated in, but I’m going to start in January.

But I know New York really well. I lived there for almost 18 years. I really became an adult in New York, I became a writer in New York. I used to do stand-up in New York, and improvisation back in the 80s. I thought, I’ll just go back to New York. That’s where I’m comfortable. And what really sped it along was, I was looking for open mics on this site called BadSlava. There are several open mics every night, seven night a week.

I came across one, at the Village Lantern on Bleecker Street, emceed by Ray Combs, Jr. Ray Combs the senior, the old man Ray Combs, I used to write for back in the 80s when he was on the short list to guest host The Tonight Show. I co-wrote his Tonight Show set that got him on the couch with Johnny Carson his first time out, a very select group of comics have done that. Ray was one of them. And that put him on the map, that he later squandered his career by chasing the easy money by becoming the host of Family Feud.

I had bailed at that point. I had moved back to New York and began working with FAIR, the media watch group, and began doing public speaking about politics. I was as far removed from the game show world as possible, but I knew Ray really well, and I used to babysit his kids. Well, here’s his son. I wrote to him and said, you’re not the Ray, Jr.? He wrote back and said, yeah, I remember you, you used to babysit us. He said, you used to smoke weed on the back porch and come in and watch Warner Brothers cartoons with us and explain all the references. I said, that’s true. I used to do that. I still do that.

So Ray Jr is like 31, and it turns out he’s one of the top emcees in the city. So that really sped the process for me. When I got to New York, we met up. And he looks just like his father. But he’s a better comedian than his father. Much more honest. He’s really quick. Ray could be a star if he wanted to be. But because his father committed suicide and went through the show biz ringer as horribly as anyone did. I mean, it ended with him killing himself. That’s how bad it was. Ray Jr. is hesitant. Although he’s moving back to LA, apparently in June or something, late spring/early summer.

I got to see him up close and it was like, oh my god, you’re so much better than your dad. I wrote for your dad. So that energized me. But doing the stages in New York, I began noticing a certain type of comic that was very prevalent. Sort of the young hipster, ultra-ironic, but also foulmouthed comic. In other words, they’re so detached from politics and everyday concerns or serious concerns because, you know, it’s like, political, man. Who wants to be political. While being incredibly coarse. Fuck, shit, cunt, bitch. Incredibly misogynistic, a lot of fag baiting. I was really alarmed. I couldn’t believe it. This is New York City!

When I moved to New York in 1982, there were still alternative performance spaces. They didn’t just do comedy, there was also performance art. They may have it still, I don’t know, but where it is, I have no clue.

I know on your blog, you’ve been disdainful of a lot of what you’ve found. Do you think there’s a place for what you want to do?

Well, if not, I’ll make a place for it. I’ll just clear the table in the corner of the room and stand on top of it and see what happens. I’ve been told that in LA I’ll have more room to do what I want to do, but I’ll believe that when I see it. I don’t know. I can’t believe that it’s any better, or worse. But we’ll see. I don’t know.

I think there is, in a way, and it’s interesting, because I’ve gotten a variety of reactions, not just from audiences but from other comic in New York, to the material I’m doing now. And I’m really anxious to see how it’s going to go over in Boston. I’ve killed in New York and I’ve bombed in New York, with the same material. And I know that’s common. To comedians, I know that’s a very common thing. But the difference is, my material is so different from everybody else’s. I will say that. I really do stand out. And plus I’m older. I’ve got some grey in my hair and I don’t hide it.

What makes you stand out, material-wise?

When I do autobiographical material, I try to tie it into a cultural-political context. Which is very rare. When comics talk about themselves, they talk about their masturbation habits, their dating habits, just standard bullshit. One of the bits that I’m thinking about doing this weekend, which I’ve done several times in New York to varying… [laughs] levels of comprehension and reaction, and I’ve written about it briefly, is when I dropped acid with these black Muslims when I was in the Army. Which is a true story.

It sounds like Mad Libs.

But it’s true. I won’t go into specifics, but it’s autobiographical, but it’s also cultural. It’s a comment on a weird situation that I experienced that has a lot of comic elements to it. And not jokey ones, either. There are jokes that come out of the premise that are natural, but I’m not turning it into a joke. It’s just the humor is there. Ideally. It’s also about white people who think they’re past racism or think that they don’t have racist conditioning. In that situation, I revealed how incredibly saturated in racist conditioning I was. Because I was the only white person in the room.

The comedians looked at me with incomprehension. What kind of material is this? Even Ray told me, your stuff is so different. It stands out, but sometimes, it’s so different that people don’t know how to react to it. Because a lot of people go to comedy clubs or go to see a comedy performance, they have a precondition for what they expect to see. If nothing else, I am not pandering to that precondition.

In a sense, if you have to create your own space, does it even necessarily matter where you do it?

No. No it doesn’t. Because I’m also thinking of maybe expanding to poetry spaces or maybe performance spaces with it, as well. I might also expand it into a podcast. That’s another thing on the docket for 2011.

How do you see all of these things working together? Or are you not even at that point yet?

Ideally, at some point, hopefully sometime next year, I hope to have the first volume of my book written next year. I think once the book comes together, they’ll all come together. I think the book is the lynchpin. The performances can be seen – if they’re taped, they go on YouTube. But they’re ephemeral. I know people say that reading, nobody reads, and the publishing industry is imploding daily.

We know all this. But still, as avant-garde as the written word is becoming – the written word outside of cyberspace, I mean, actual “on pulp,” outside of any kind of electronic book – that’s the new avant-garde. Written word on paper. It’s true. As avant-garde as that currently is, I still think, in the end, that is going to be the anchor for the whole thing. So I’m betting the farm on an increasingly archaic artform. Which is really the story of my life.

A good friend of mine told me, “Dennis, you always go for the hardest angle.”

You’re on the blunted edge of technology.

Yeah. It’s just like, what’s the most difficult path I can take? But it’s not premeditated, though. I just go where I think – I lack a real strategic vision in a lot of ways. I have people helping me in that regard. I can’t do it myself. I just go where my mind takes me.

Howard Zinn, RIP

Nearly eight years ago, I had the privilege of interviewing historian Howard Zinn for my Comedy Notes column in the Boston Globe. Zinn dies of a heart attack yesterday at the age of 87.

When I was writing the column, I made a point to try to stretch a bit beyond just what was happening in the clubs, and in this case, I got to explore the relationship between Zinn and political satirist Barry Crimmins. I was thrilled the Globe accepted the premise of the column, which was published in 2002. What follows is the unedited version of the column I submitted, which I believe shows a slightly different side of Zinn.

Where comedy and politics meet
June 21, 2002

In its base form, comedy is about contradictions. Whether it’s an Adam Sandler movie about a rough and tumble misfit in a refined environment or a Tom Stoppard play about lost Shakespearian characters. When comedy turns political, as is the case with comedian Barry Crimmins, that contradiction takes the form of dissent. The job of the political comedian is to question consensus and common wisdom. Crimmins has been doing that since the Reagan administration, taking on subjects from the Iran-Contra hearings up to Enron and Afghanistan.

“Even mainstream humor trades in dissent, whether it be about pop culture, family life or any number of subjects considered by comedians,” says Crimmins. “Sassing back at things that encroach upon our lives is funny. It provides relief and refutation. Different answers to mind-numbing and predictable nonsense make us laugh.”

About ten years ago, Crimmins found a partner in dissent when he met controversial historian Howard Zinn, the subject of a documentary for which Crimmins will host a fundraiser this Sunday at the Green St. Grill. The two began to cross paths in the eighties, speaking at the same rallies and attending each others’ lectures and shows. For his part, Zinn was thrilled to see a comedian with a knowledge of history and politics.

“I had seen him perform, and was knocked out by his combination of comedy and politics, which I hadn’t seen before anywhere,” says Zinn. “That is, not since I was watching Dick Gregory, or, you know, that generation. But in this generation, he was the first comic I’d run into who had political intelligence.”

Zinn’s influence on Crimmins stretches back to the seventies, when his sister returned from studying at B.U., where Zinn is professor emeritus, and turned her younger brother on to Zinn’s work. Later, while Crimmins was helping to create Boston’s eighties comedy boom at the Ding Ho club in Inman Square, he was reading Zinn’s books, including A People’s History of the United States, a landmark work in the alternative history movement.

Neither of them can recall exactly when they first started talking on a regular basis, but they’ve been friends for more than ten years. Though Crimmins left Boston in 1994, he and Zinn still get together to drink coffee and talk about world affairs whenever they’re in the same city. Crimmins cites Zinn as a valuable resource for and influence on his comedy.

“When I think of Howard, it’s been amazing to me that I can read his stuff and that I actually know him and I can call him up,” says Crimmins.

He remembers a specific moment when he sought perspective from Zinn during a presidential election year. “One day years ago I was upset with the late Senator Tsongas because he was standing in front of a sweat shop announcing that we had to turn to these traditional American values,” says Crimmins. “He was announcing in front of the mills of Lowell that he was going to run for president – it was time we got back to these great values. And so I called up Howard, and he said, ‘Oh, Barry you’ve got to learn about the mill girls of Lowell’. And he told me about these horrible circumstances that these women worked in. I mean, I had read about them before, in Howard’s book. But just being able to call him and have him immediately cite it in detail…”

Zinn also introduced Crimmins on his 1991 CD, Kill the Messenger. “A lot of people would say, ‘Hey, I got Bud Freedman to introduce me’,” says Crimmins, referring to the founder of legendary comedy club The Improvisation. “Well, you know, I got Howard Zinnn. That’s pretty cool.”

Crimmins credits Zinn with the ability to make sense of esoteric political ideas in a way that encourages people to dig a little deeper into the issues. “In theory, I try to do the same thing with my comedy,” says Crimmins. “I try to take a very complex set of world affairs that we deal with and make them accessible to people in a way, and give them things so that they can understand things a little better. And it gives them a chance to refute some of the very oppressive conventional wisdom. And history has been nothing but conventional wisdom for a long time until we started taking different looks at it.”

Zinn believes Crimmins is in a unique position to challenge that conventional wisdom through political comedy. “What distinguishes Barry is that he’s bolder than anybody else, politically,” says Zinn. He believes comedy can be an important vehicle for communicating ideas, albeit an underused one. “To me, comedy can serve a very powerful social purpose, and it has its own special power that ordinary political rhetoric doesn’t have. And so, when it’s missing from the scene, then something very important has gone out of the culture. You know, I think we’re feeling some of that vacuum today.”

As for Crimmins, he acknowledges the limitations of art as a means of effecting immediate change, but does think stand-up comedians can have an impact on politics and society.

“We can continue to be provocative, you know, ask questions,” Crimmins says. “And we can smuggle content to people in the form of pop culture. Just the same as pop culture is used all the time to smuggle other ideas to people, like buy this product, look like this, be like this, go along with this. You can do the same thing and present other ideas.”

Crimmins will host a fundraiser at the Green St. Grill in Cambridge this Sunday for Howard Zinn: A Disobedient History, a documentary in progress. Doors open at two, show starts at three. For info call 617-287-5850.

The Boston Scene: Looking Back and Forward to 2009

This was a year of transition for the Boston comedy scene. The Comedy Connection left Faneuil Hall for the Wilbur. Mottley’s Comedy Club opened to give Faneuil Hall a different, more indie-driven vibe. The Comedy Studio kept chugging despite losing staples like Micah Sherman and Myq Kaplan to New York. Dick Doherty stepped up his programming at the Vault.

There were rumblings about what would become of the scene, the usual concerns about hemorrhaging talent to New York and Los Angeles and speculation about the club scene. But at it’s base, this scene isn’t about the clubs. Never has been. The clubs, like the old Ding Ho and Catch a Rising Star, and more recently the Connection and the Studio, are just the facilitators. This scene is about the comedians, and from what I’ve seen over the past decade covering comedy in Boston, this scene will never lack for good comedians.

Nine years ago, I saw the Ding Ho reunion at the Somerville Theatre. I had been in town for about a year, and seen a few shows, but really hadn’t gotten my feet wet in the scene yet. At that reunion, I saw Bobcat Goldthwait, Steven Wright, Barry Crimmins, Jimmy Tingle, Don Gavin, Steve Sweeney, Lenny Clarke, Mike McDonald, Tony V., DJ Hazard, and probably twenty other comics whose roots were firmly planted in Boston.

It was an amazing array of talent, and an exhausting night as comic after talented comic took the stage. People took turns hosting just to get through it. You can read about the history of this scene all you want, but seeing wave after wave of comics of whom I was already a fan and hilarious veterans I had never heard of drove home just how rich the Boston comedy scene is, how deep its history. And the fact that I had laughed for more than three hours was proof this wasn’t just talk – these people were funny, and there seemed to be an endless supply of them.

A few weeks ago, I saw a lot of the same people at Showcase Live when Steven Wright was introduced into the Boston Comedy Hall of Fame. Crimmins gave us a glimpse into what it’s like to tour with Wright (Theme song --- “No Woman, No Press Charges,” and tequila and acid were staples, acid for the audience so they’d better understand the show). Bob Lazarus had the best set I’d seen him do. Ken Rogerson, Tony V, Don Gavin, Jimmy Tingle, Steve Sweeney, Lenny Clarke, Mike McDonald – the audience knew and cheered every one of them. They were old friends, a constant in an ever evolving city.

A few days later, the Paradise Rock Club hosted Robby Roadsteamer’s Greater Boston Alternative Comedy Festival. Roadsteamer had assembled some of the best of a new wave of Boston comedians. You can debate the term “alternative” if you’d like (in an awkward moment waiting for a sound cue that seemed like it would never come, host Shane Webb questioned alternative – “It just has to be weird, right?”). You can say it’s a false category, call it pretentious, however you perceive it. But what you can’t do is apply that old chestnut that it’s the “alternative to funny.”

Character comic Chris Coxen showed off his “combat dancing” as Danny Morsel (a mix of disco and punching and kicking) and his smoothness as loungemaster Barry Tattle. Mehran, who I was seeing in person for the first time, had a powerhouse set about being both gay and Iranian (the man is not shy about mining either for laughs). Bethany Van Delft was cool and intellectual, the Walsh Brothers told their wild stories about adjusting to LA, Anderson Comedy sang of Christmas with no pants. Shane Mauss pulled off a neat and seamless set of stand-up with a cell phone sketch sown in. And Roadsteamer clearly had the crowd behind him during his set of musical diatribes about the Boston comedy and music scenes, with help from a couple of muscleheads on my favorite of his tunes, “I Got Construction Boots.”

Two shows within three days of each other. Boston veterans, and a new generation of Boston comics. Whatever else might be in transition, the comedians are here, old and new, and they both have helped me laugh my ass off for nearly ten years. And there are continuing efforts to bring the two worlds together. Mottley’s approach to booking has allowed Shane Mauss, veteran Patty Ross, and Baron Vaughn (back home from New York) to headline. Artie Januario hosts a Wednesday night open mic at Giggles that regularly attracts veterans like Tony V (watch for that to start up again January 21).

My hope for 2009 is that people go out to see these comedians, and realize how lucky they are to live in a city where comedy never dies. And you don’t have to go very far to find it.

John Tobin on the new Boston Comedy Hall of Fame

There is a hall of fame for just about everything these day. Every sport has one, every form of music. So why not Boston comedy? Boston City Councilor John Tobin asked a similar question in a conversation with his friend, Spark Capital’s Todd Dagres. The two decided to create the Boston Comedy Hall of Fame, which will induct its first member, Steven Wright, at a local all-star ceremony at Showcase Live on December 15.

Wright was an obvious choice. The Boston scene was already swinging when Wright made his first appearance on “The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson” in 1982, but his obvious talent led people to start looking for talent here. And since Tobin was looking for a comedian who “has made significant and lifelong contributions to the art of stand-up comedy,” Wright was perfect. “That was easy and unanimous,” he says. “Steven Wright is the obvious first choice in a long line of future inductees.” He adds that if Wright hadn’t agreed to it, they wouldn’t have gone forward.

The line-up for the show reflects Wright’s importance in the Boston comedy community. Tony V. will host the ceremony, which will include performances by Don Gavin, Barry Crimmins, Steve Sweeney, Mike Donovan, Mike McDonald, Lenny Clarke, Ken Rogerson, and Jimmy Tingle, with a video from “When Stand Up Stood Out” director Fran Solomita.

For now, there will be no brick and mortar Boston Comedy Hall of Fame, but Tobin says he “would love to see it at some point be a part of a larger complex dedicated to the history of Boston entertainment.” Wright will receive an Oscar-sized statue (to go with his actual Oscar) called the Thomas Wignell Award, named for a 19th century actor considered by some to be the first stand-up comedian.

Tobin, a co-founder of the Boston Comedy Festival, has always been a comedy fan and looked for ways to contribute above and beyond his duties as a City Councilman. “It’s just something that I have always been passionate about,” he says. “Comedy has had a big role in shaping me and I have nothing but admiration for the men and women who work hard and lend their voices to making people laugh and think.”

Tobin and Dagres have set up the project as a not-for-profit under the banner of “Stage Source,” which will set up a fund for comedians who fall sick and need assistance. Tobin is the executive director and Dagres is the president of the board, which Tobin expects to expand after this year’s ceremony.

Watch www.BostonComedyHallOfFame.com for future developments.