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Chris Morris
Published Sunday, April 24, 2011 | 7:33 p.m.
Updated Sunday, April 24, 2011 | 7:33 p.m.
You have to wonder what inspires an audience member to disrupt a stand-up comedy show. Let's climb inside the head of such an individual and find out ...
The billboards and signs strategically placed around the Mirage say, “Aces Of Comedy, Lewis Black.”
But those slabs of advertising do not reveal the entirety of this entertainment experience, for tonight, I shall co-star. It will be an unbilled performance, as always, yet just as vital to the evening of laughter as the 20 minutes of comedy put forth by opening act John Bowman.
Bowman is but a mere warm-up act. Me, I turn Black’s burners red.
Comedian Lewis Black.
Comedian Lewis Black.
As always, mine will be an unbilled and entirely unexpected insertion of comic genius uncorked from the very middle of the Mirage Terry Fator Theater. Somehow I have a ticket that positions me ideally in the center, a perfect spot whence to fire my own inspired witticisms during pauses in Black’s precision stand-up show.
Lucky me. Lucky Lewis.
Call me “The Interloper.” Some are fast to refer to me as a heckler, but I do not heckle. Rather, I mischievously play the role of artistic trespasser. And it is an art, passed down through generations of interlopers.
Remember the guy on the album “Let’s Get Small” who shouted at Steve Martin, “What’s your Mood Watch say?!”
That man was my father.
Martin chuckled and said, “Yeah, I remember when I had my first beer.”
We’re not always appreciated by comedians, we interlopers. The late Bill Hicks practically waded into audiences to physically take us on. Our female members have been told by such comic aces as Brad Garrett, “Hey, I don’t walk into the bedroom and interrupt you when you’re working!”
But we provide -- for nothing! -- a valuable service. I mean, where would Michael Richards’ career be today without some perfectly timed audience participation during a 2006 show at the Laugh Factory in L.A.?
Well, maybe that’s not the best example.
Tonight, tonight is a challenge. Lewis Black will be a tricky target. He is smart. He is angry. He is experienced. I need to be on my game to be on his nerves.
Early in the show, Black struggles to pull the cap off a bottle of water. I shout, “Fiji!” He halts, nods and grins slightly.
Off to a good start. I have planted the seed.
Several minutes later, he talks of performing recently in Wendover. It matters not that I have no idea where or even what Wendover might be. Seems it’s a small town.
“Wendover has a newspaper, which is great to read if you don’t want to read any news!” he bellows. “There is no Japan in Wendover! We have no president! Libya does not exist in Wendover! Only Wendover exists in Wendover! When I was there, they put me on the front page of the newspaper, I think only to make people aware that there would be a Jew in town!’ ”
Waiting … waiting ...
“Wendover is on the Nevada-Utah border. You know why?” he calls out. “So the Mormons can sneak over and gamble! You can see them, you know. They come over at night, in their covered wagons!”
“Yes, they do!” I interject.
“You know,” he says, now addressing me directly. “There is no reason for you to add to the show. I have put A LOT OF THOUGHT INTO THIS ACT WITHOUT NEEDING INPUT FROM YOU!”
The audience cheers. They are mine.
He moves on to his new Android. This is a funny routine, how he has had to set up a means to make a call from his iPhone out of his house by calling AT&T and setting up additional technical infrastructure.
“Yes, I have had to call AT&T to provide the infrastructure I thought I was buying with my cell phone to do what?” he cries. “To make a call from a cell phone in my house from a LAND LINE!”
Waiting … waiting …
“So I have now switched to an Android,” he tells us. And the crowd applauds.
“DON’T APPLAUD THAT!” he says, building to a punch line.
“Why not!?” I shout.
Again, he breaks from his act.
“Look!” he shouts, “when I write this material, I consider every possible question. THAT’S WHAT THE PAUSE IS FOR! THE PAUSE LETS THE AUDIENCE ASK THE QUESTION IN THEIR HEADS, NOT OUT LOUD, YOU IDIOT! Some comics build audience response into their acts! I AM NOT ONE OF THEM!”
Then he says, “Where was this joke? Oh, don’t applaud that! Never applaud an inanimate object!” Then, turning back to me, he says, “See what you did? The crowd is going, ‘What was he talking about, again?’ You ruined that effing joke!”
This is because I am a star!
I’m in what athletes refer to as “the zone” now. Black leads into a joke and says, “I’m getting old!”
“Yes, you are!” I shout.
Like helium inflating a balloon, the room fills with tension. “Shut up!” Someone shouts from behind me. Too late!
Black has had it.
“Look!” he says. “Next time you want to shout something in the middle of my act, just cover your mouth with your hand! Because if you don’t, SOMEONE SEATED NEXT TO YOU WILL DO IT FOR YOU! AND BE GLAD YOU CAN STILL BREATHE OUT OF YOUR NOSE! You know, we had a woman last night who was just like you, sitting in the front row, BUT AT LEAST SHE HAD THE GOOD SENSE TO WALK UP THE AISLE AND LEAD HERSELF OUT!”
The crowd cheers again, with renewed vigor. Many are angry. Black turns off stage to an unseen individual -- maybe it’s Bowman -- shrugs his shoulders and shakes his head. There is the feeling that security will be summoned to wrest me from my seat and drag me from the show. It’ll never happen. That would be more disruptive than anything I’ve said all night.
I am brilliant.
Black, having spent a good segment of the night dealing with me, takes the show to its conclusion. The evening has been funny, but it also has been different. This was not a typical Lewis Black performance, and as the audience rises for a standing ovation, I felt they are applauding me, too.
I bask in the glory. I have earned it. I am already preparing for my next show, somewhere in a Las Vegas club or theater. My act will be unique, yet familiar, and I do hope you treat me accordingly.
Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow "Kats With the Dish" at twitter.com/KatsWithTheDish.
THIS IS EITHER SOMETHING OF A "JOKE" OR THIS MAN IS AN %^(*$#^!!!!
But I don't get the joke. I worked in Las Vegas for many years. You could see Shecky Greene, Rickles, Jack E. Leonard, Curtis and Tracy, The Smothers, Redd Foxx, Slappy White,Johnny Carson, Bob Newhart,The Goofers, The Characters,Louie Prima and Wife, and so many others. They were funny and you did not heckle them or you would be out on your ear. But this is either a fantasy or a bad joke. And if it really happened where was Security? It would be great to see this hockey puck do this when Buddy Rich was alive. (Buddy had a Black Belt in Karate}. If this doofus actually did this and this paper published it, I say SHAME!!!! Trump and Sarah Palin need people like this.
Sad, Sad, Sad.....and not funny.
hey john...
let me let you in on a little secret...
your ego has run amuck...
so much so...
you think this article is clever...
it is not...
sorry pal...
just makes you look like a fool...
hey john...
some people saved all year to go on vacation...
and they chose vegas...
and they were psyched to see lewis...
and then some idiot trying to out do daddy shows up...
and ruins it all...
then...
it gets worse...
this idiot has such a distorted ego...
he wants to write an article about it...
atta boy...
saddest part of all...
then sun ran the article...
reflects very badly on the sun...
very badly indeed...
This a strange article! I cannot tell if Mr. Katsilometes was trying to write from the veiwpoint of the heckler of if he was actually the heckler? If John was the heckler, he should be fired by the Sun. If John is trying to explain the heckler's motivations, then it is a waste of space. People who shout out at performances and sporting events are idiots and don't need any media coverage. Poor writing by John and a poor choice by the Sun to print it.
The idea was to satirically write from the point of view of someone who did, in fact, disrupt a live performance by Lewis Black. I was at the show, but I was not actually that person. This was written from the perspective of any idiot who would be motivated, somehow, to interject himself into a stand-up comedy show. It was not me who actually disrupted the show, no.
"You have to wonder what inspires an audience member to disrupt a stand-up comedy show. Let's climb inside the head of such an individual and find out ..." This lead-in was not showing in the on-line version of the story earlier this morning.
I felt inclined once, in Reno to stand up in a Dennis Miller show and tell him it was VERY lame to charge $35 to see him recite jokes that were dated by several years, and had been on HBO 2/3 years previous...I didn't, I walked out instead...
I was there and I knew it was Kats being satirical as the real guy was a total douche. I wish whoever LB looked to off stage would've come out & smacked the guy. Other than that it was a great show.
hey john...
good to know you are not an @$$...
as i have enjoyed your columns thruout the years...
but i must say...
it is very hard to tell that you were not writing about yourself...
the steve martin reference is what sealed the notion in my mind...
anyway...
thanks for the clarification...
and keep up the good work...
I understand how this column could have been confused. I added the note after it was originally posted, just to make it clear. I would not interrupt a show in such a way, not Lewis Black on Saturday or any entertainer on any day. I don't get why people feel the need to act like idiots, but rather than just make that trite point, I wrote from a different perspective -- that of the idiot.
I did this at a Dom Irrera show a while back at the Riviera. He just rolled with it and actually acknowledged me as a "serial embellisher." I only made a couple comments and didn't try to upstage his show (at least IMHO). Good thing it wasn't you John but the story was a bit confusing.
Don't worry John, if you didn't get belittled by Lewis Black you can always count on the left wing loons to castigate you no matter what you say or do.
Wait, so to not heckle is to be left-wing but TO heckle is right-wing? Wow, then sign me up for the left-wing, because anyone who would heckle a comedian deserves to be thrown out-and anyone who would defend such an idiot should have to explain their position to the room full of polite people who paid to hear the performer-not someone else-talk.
It's the sad duty for a comic to have to deal with hecklers, and at a Lewis Black show it seems they come in full force (I saw him a year ago, at the MGM, and it seemed like half the audience was involved) It takes a masterful performer to be able to control a crowd and keep them focused on the routine and not on the idiot screaming "yea and so's your mom"
You pay $$$ to see a performer, Don't you want your monies worth?
Jonathan
Love your column Kats! I understood the article as it was written, since I get your humor and never once thought you would have the guts to be a heckler in the audience. I think readers forget that this is Vegas and people come here to exude stupidity on a level that is incomprehensible in their own city.
This reminds me of a theme I wrote in freshman English, the only one I wrote which received a B. The teacher said, "That's the problem with irony. If the audience doesn't get it, it fails badly."
I admit I did "heckle" a comic, once. He was lucky. I gave him the only laughs in his act. I was funnier and that's pretty telling about how bad he was. Actually not a very good memory, ranking up there with hemorrhoid surgery.
Sorry, man, but this was a really poorly-conceived and written column. You'll do better next time, I'm sure. :)
Good one, Mr. Kats, me too, I got the message and the self-ironic tone of this column, great columns. I understood, what you meant by exagerating your descrption of that scene.
Thanks again. Great piece of work.
Regards
Chuck