Columnist Lisa Ferguson: Comedy, computers complementary for Solmssen

Lisa Ferguson

Friday, June 25, 2004 | 8:49 a.m.

Andrew Solmssen won't be quitting his day job any time soon, and that's a good thing.

Not because he can't hack it as a stand-up comic: In fact, he performs most every night at comedy clubs, coffeehouses and other venues around Los Angeles. For several years, Solmssen also booked and hosted a weekly late-night comedy show.

Actually, he says, it's from his day job -- as the owner of an independent computer consulting firm -- that some of his best comedy material is birthed. "I talk about how I'm such a nerd," he says, "that the only sexually transmitted disease I'm ever gonna get is carpal tunnel syndrome."

During a recent call from his home/office in Santa Monica, Calif., Solmssen -- who wraps his weeklong Las Vegas debut Sunday at Riviera Comedy Club -- explained, "I love being a nerd. I love knowing how things work, and I think that's a lot of what being a nerd is about, is knowing how things work and being enthusiastic about it."

If there's one thing he knows, it's computers. Over the years his company, Bitboy Enterprises, has serviced such notable clients as NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Institutes of Health, among others. As a "digital generalist" (a title he bestowed upon himself), Solmssen works with all types of computers, building network servers, revising domain structures, implementing programs and undertaking myriad tasks that would send the heads of lesser brainiacs spinning.

"I try to do a little bit of everything and I try to have a more general view of what computers are and what they can do for you," he says. "If somebody comes to me ... they're interested in whether a computer is gonna solve their problem, and they're interested in doing it as inexpensively and as appropriately as possible. So I like to come up with solutions that really solve a problem for people without too much brand awareness. I call myself 'platform agnostic' sometimes."

If the humor of that statement zipped right over your computer-illiterate head, you're directed to insert the rim shot here. On the other hand, Solmssen knows there is an audience out there -- likely composed of computer geeks just like him -- for which gut-busting laughs would result from such a quip.

"I think I have something to say to the nerds of the world," he contends. "I really want to be somebody who can talk to nerds and make them laugh. There's room, I think, in every sort of niche for comedy."

But Solmssen is also careful not to alienate less-computer-savvy crowds. When playing to those groups, his material shifts to include such topics as his ample size (he estimates his weight to be somewhere between 350 and 400 pounds). "I try not to do too much of that because that's not who I want to be onstage," he says, "but sometimes it's just so damn funny, you've just gotta tell a story."

Like the time he was onboard an airplane and requested an extension for his seat belt: "The flight attendant gives me this sort of conspiratorial wink and then she palms it to me, like she's handing me a vial of crack. You know, I've got a lot of secrets, but the fact that I'm fat is not one of them."

Also, "I'll do a joke about how there are all these stories about obesity on the news and that's one of my great fears -- that I will recognize myself in the anonymous footage of fat people that they use to illustrate the story. It won't be so much my shirt or my pants; I'll see my Palm Pilot and I'll know that it's me. That ties it back to the nerd thing."

Solmssen -- who was born in Brazil, the son of a former U.S. foreign service, but was raised in Washington, D.C. -- began his stand-up career in 1999 when he first took the stage during an open-mike night at "a rundown coffeeshop" in L.A., a joint where "you're not gonna be any worse than the crazy homeless guy (onstage) yelling about having freaky sex with Gina Shock of The Go-Gos."

Before long, Solmssen was tapped to helm the "Midnight Comedy Hour" at Lulu's Beehive, a coffeehouse in Studio City, Calif., where, at his request, such alt-comedy celebs as Sarah Silverman, Patton Oswalt and Rick Overton would perform. "My sort of rule of thumb when I booked that show was to always book a show I wanted to see, and that meant booking people who were better than I was." After 3 1/2 years under his watch, the show closed late last year.

"Sometimes I feel a little bit schizophrenic," 37-year-old Solmssen says of balancing his computer and comedy careers. "I spend part of my life trying to explain to comedy people why they shouldn't click viruses, and I spend the rest of my life trying to explain to computer people why (comedian) Andy Kindler is funny. So there's certainly a kind of split, but I think the union of the two is certainly greater than the sum of the parts."

While he often performs at such high-profile clubs as The Improv in Los Angeles, he's also known to frequent more eclectic venues. "Two nights ago I was in front of a pay toilet at a Laundromat" in L.A.'s Echo Park neighborhood, he explains, for an installment of "All Washed Up," a long-running comedy show. "You get up there and you talk and you have some fun, and a largely Spanish-speaking audience looks at you like you're crazy, and if you're lucky nobody gets arrested while you're there."

Of course, such gigs don't offer the financial security Solmssen has come to enjoy courtesy of his computer business, hence the reason he's unwilling to pull the plug on that "very lucrative, flexible, wonderful career" and devote himself entirely to comedy.

"The computer part gets me places," he insists. "I'm in a lot of doors with my screwdriver in my hand that a lot comedians would love to be behind. I know a lot of (club) managers; I know a lot of agents because I've fixed their computers."

It also helps that, "I could not be happier. I have this weird, sort of adolescent lifestyle where I wake up at 11 or 12 o'clock, I go fix computers for people for a while ... and then I get to go hang out with some really smart, really funny, really dysfunctional people and listen to them be very smart and funny and talk about how dysfunctional they are," he says. "It's hard to ignore what a good life I have."

Out for laughs

A change in the lineup tonight and Saturday at Funniez comedy club at Buffalo Bill's in Primm: Local comic Lew Sall steps in for Joe Pellegrino. Also on the bill is Danny Villalpando, who has traveled the globe entertaining troops in the Middle East, the Caribbean, Greenland, the South Pacific and Europe. This weekend's Funniez shows will be hosted by Jac Hayden.

Speaking of Pellegrino, he is slated to take the stage July 19 through July 25 at Riviera Comedy Club, where Jackie "The Joke Man" Martling -- a former sidekick on "The Howard Stern Show" who was the first comic to be profiled in this space when Laugh Lines debuted in April 2003 -- is set to return Aug. 13 through 15. Also headed to the Riv: former local headliner ventriloquist Michele LaFong (July 5 through July 11); Juston McKinney, most recently seen among the funny hopefuls on "Last Comic Standing" (July 12-18); and Diane Ford (July 26 through Aug. 1), who graced this space earlier this year.