Columnist Lisa Ferguson: Wang prefers practicing comedy, computer basics

Lisa Ferguson

Friday, Jan. 23, 2004 | 8:20 a.m.

Wally Wang knows firsthand the importance of sticking with even the most far-reaching New Year's resolutions.

On Jan. 1, 1990, the Detroit native resolved to dive headfirst into a stand-up comedy career. The decision might not have been a monumental one, except that Wang had never even set foot in a comedy club.

Couple that with the fact that he'd also previously built himself a solid reputation as something of a computer whiz.

In fact, it was the year before -- while working in Africa as a visiting professor in the computer science department at the University of Zimbabwe -- that Wang discovered he had a knack for comedy. Sitting in his bare-bones hotel room night after night, he became "so bored ... I just started babbling to myself, and then I started laughing and I thought, 'This is actually kind of funny.' "

Upon returning to the United States, a friend suggested Wang make a New Year's resolution. "The first thing that popped into my mind was stand-up comedy," he recalls.

Shortly thereafter Wang began performing his brand of "pseudo-political" humor at clubs in San Diego, where he's resided since the early '80s, as well as in Las Vegas. He plays Riviera Comedy Club through Sunday. While he says he "did pretty good" his first time onstage, "the next two years I did horribly and struggled." But he didn't become discouraged.

"I just kept plowing through it because I knew in my heart that I could get better."

All the while he has kept his material clean, forgoing obscenities and blue humor in his act.

"It's challenging, but it's also kind of depressing because somebody who I feel has a lot less talent can get a lot more laughs by getting up there and cussing," Wang explained during a recent call from his home.

The comedy burden has been eased a bit by the fact that Wang has maintained a rather comfy day job: He's penned between 40 and 50 computer-related books, including a dozen published as part of the wildly popular "For Dummies" series.

Meanwhile his tome, "Steal This Computer Book: What They Won't Tell You About the Internet" (No Starch Press, 1998), in its third edition, has sold more than 150,000 copies. A follow-up, tentatively titled "Steal This File-Sharing Book," is due this spring.

"I just wrote it for the fun of it and, the next thing you know, that one's making me more money than all of my 'Dummies' books," he says of "Steal This Computer Book's" surprise success. His latest offering, "Totally Tasteless Photoshop Elements" (McGrawHill, $24.99), was released last fall. In it, he guides readers in tweaking snapshots taken with digital cameras, among other fixes.

Interestingly enough, 42-year-old Wang -- who graduated from Michigan State University with dual majors in material engineering and English, and later earned a master's degree in computer science -- is not a computer fan. "I think they're the worst machines that have ever been created because they're designed so poorly."

That view, however, has been the key behind his literary success. Rather than load up his books with jargon and directives only computer junkies could understand, he writes with novices in mind -- even when publishers would rather have a programming pro at the helm.

"The problem is, whoever is an expert has already forgotten what it's like to be a beginner," Wang says.

When a book contract is up for grabs, he often fibs to publishers about his experience using the computer program about which he is to write.

Typically, "I have never used the program, and when they give me the contract, I'm like, 'I've gotta figure out how to use it.' That's how I can write to the beginners' attitude, because I'm writing the book essentially for myself."

While he's endured the wrath of some heavy-handed editors, he's usually afforded "a chance to have fun and joke around because otherwise these computer books would be so dreadfully dull to write," he says. "I don't want to use them; I don't want to write about them. But if I can throw jokes in, then it keeps me amused."

When he's not writing, Wang is performing. He often headlines corporate gigs that are scheduled through Top Bananas Entertainment, a company he co-founded with fellow comic Patrick DeGuire.

For a time the business also had a third partner -- Vegas frequenter Dat Phan, winner of the NBC reality series "Last Comic Standing." The business trio parted ways several years ago, Wang says, when Phan briefly abandoned his stand-up comedy career.

"So he dropped out of the company and he moved to L.A., and the next thing I know, he's on 'Last Comic Standing.' " Nevertheless, Wang harbors no hard feelings. "He's a cool guy."

Now Wang wants his small-screen turn. While he's had nonspeaking "extra" roles in a couple of flicks (most notably, he played a prison guard in the 1987 drama "Hanoi Hilton"), his "big goal is to get on TV" to help bolster his comic credibility.

"TV gives you that magic wand, where people will pay more attention to you."

That, in turn, could help Wang fulfill his "personal goal" to "raise the standard of comedy, so when people go into a comedy club they expect more than what they're getting right now," which is mostly obscene shtick, he contends. "I don't want people to laugh at that. I want people to get used to a higher standard of comedy ... I want to get audiences smarter."

Out for laughs

Catch the always-outspoken, Emmy Award-winning Dennis Miller tonight through Sunday at Paris Las Vegas' Le Theatre des Arts, before he gets busy gabbing about politics on his self-titled talk show, which debuts at 9 p.m. Monday on CNBC (Cox cable channel 35).

There shouldn't be a bad seat in the house when Chris Rock plays the MGM Grand Garden Arena on March 5. That's because there won't be many chairs: Only 6,000 seats in the massive venue will be available for the show. Tickets, which went on sale earlier this month, are $142.50; call 891-7777.

Speaking of comedians named Chris, please don't hesitate to laugh at Chris "Crazy Legs" Fonseca. The wheelchair-bound comic (he was born with cerebral palsy) likely won't want it any other way when he takes the Riviera Comedy Club's stage Feb. 9 through Feb.15.

Legendary funny man Shelly Berman returns to Las Vegas to perform Feb. 17 through Feb. 22 at The Improv at Harrah's.