Sunday, Sept. 10, 2006 | 7:40 a.m.
What: "Michael Colyar's Comedy Extravaganza"
When: 9 p.m. Wednesdays
Where: Fitzgeralds Showroom
Tickets: $19.95; 388-2400
Michael Colyar bounces around Fitzgeralds showroom, seating guests and taking drink orders. The little side bar is closed - a bartender was fired shortly before curtain time - so the crowd is sober and their orders will have to be filled at a bar in the casino.
His shaved head reflects the lights in the low ceiling as he flashes a friendly smile. He talks nonstop, joking with guests, speaking to the room at large about the upcoming comedians, about the room, about himself, about anything that comes to a supercharged mind racing like a Ford around a NASCAR oval.
Finally, Brooks Colyar comes onstage and introduces her husband - the star of "Michael Colyar's Comedy Extravaganza," and one of the city's most unusual comedy shows begins.
"I wouldn't do a racist joke," the 49-year-old stand-up comic says, pacing hyperactively across the tiny stage.
Pause.
"Well, maybe one "
Or two. Or three.
He touches on racism, sex and other sensitive topics during the 2 1/2-hour show. He doesn't so much touch them as flatten them like a runaway semi.
Almost nothing is taboo - not the jokes, not the language. The only thing sacrosanct is the audience, a melting pot of races and cultures that fills the 140 seats on most Wednesday nights.
"I don't let comedians attack the audience," he says after the show. "If the show is no good, get off the stage. Sometimes a comedian isn't doing good and so he turns around and attacks the audience. I don't let that happen.
"I don't want anyone to walk out of here saying, 'They beat up on us.' That's not what we're attempting to do here."
What they are attempting to do is to inform and educate while making people laugh, Colyar says. It's what he's been doing since he was a street comedian in the '80s and '90s.
"I call it 'conscious comedy,' " Colyar says. "I was talking about AIDS and safe sex back in '85 and '86, before people were openly talking about it. I was on the beach five hours a day every Saturday and Sunday talking about it. I even wore a condom hat.
"I joked about it and they opened their minds and I was able to slip some knowledge in there. They would walk away and say, 'Wait a minute. He actually said something.' And they would start thinking about staying off drugs and that racism is stupid."
There isn't another comedy show like this in Las Vegas. Each week, Colyar shares the stage with radio personality Mike P from KVEG 97.5-FM and three or four other comedians.
For one thing, it's only one night a week - Wednesdays. For another, it's "urban," meaning most of the comedians are black.
The humor is edgy, laced with profanity so pervasive that listeners eventually forget the four-letter words and concentrate on the comedy.
The audience never knows who'll wind up in the spotlight at the "Comedy Extravaganza."
Sometimes the performers are famous. George Wallace, who headlines at the Flamingo, dropped by for the premiere of Colyar's show in December.
"I didn't expect George to work my room. I just thought he was going to come in and say hello, but then he got up and did 20 minutes," Colyar says. "He blessed our opening night."
Marsha Warfield, who played the bailiff on the sitcom "Night Court," drops by every two or three weeks to try out material.
"What's up with Condoleezza Rice and her flippity-do hair?" Warfield asks an audience delighted by her surprise appearance. "How is she going to negotiate world peace with hair that looks like that?
"She needs one of those urban-severe, slicked down, inner-city, Southside razor cuts; the one with the built-in attitude. People would take her seriously then - 'Uh, there ain't gonna be no more nuclear (expletive deleted) around here.' "
Sometimes the performers are amateurs, given five minutes by Colyar to test their mettle and their material.
"Who promoted this show? Keep it Quiet Promotions?" says aspiring stand-up comedian Marlin Baker. Young, tall, thin and at ease onstage, he surveys the half-full room. "Ain't enough (expletive deleted) in here to have a good argument."
Another comedian is late, incurring the wrath of Colyar, who isn't afraid to cut the amateurs off at the knees if he feels they deserve it.
"There are a lot of living-room comedians," Colyar says. "They're funny at home when they're laying on the couch, but when they get onstage in front of the lights and have to deliver, they fall to pieces.
"If they do good, then I bring them back in a few weeks for 10 minutes. If they're not good, then I'll spend 10 minutes talking about them onstage in front of the audience. And they must stay for the critique. If they don't, they'll never come back in my club again."
The tardy comic is obviously nervous during his five minutes; Colyar doles out some words of encouragement.
"You've got to have confidence," he says. "If you've got confidence, you don't need material. You can just come up here and talk to the audience."
Sometimes, Colyar turns up the lights and gives away donated items. Meals. Show tickets. Merchandise.
"The giveaway is one of the best parts of the show," Colyar says. "I like to give stuff away This reverend used to come in every week and give away a brand new acoustic guitar. He gave away eight guitars; one a week, eight weeks in a row."
Colyar commutes to Las Vegas from L.A. on Wednesdays. He also travels around the country performing; he recently did five shows in Chicago and eight shows in Louisville, Ky.
He started his comedy career in Chicago in '85, standing on street corners, telling jokes and passing his hat. He made good money during the summer months, but when the cold winds started blowing across Lake Michigan, no one wanted to stand around listening to a comedian. He packed his car and headed for sunny California, where he earned the title King of Venice Beach by performing every weekend for nine years.
Before those performances, he would buy 10 fast-food breakfasts and distribute them to homeless people. "They were only 99 cents and they didn't have any meat with them, but to a hungry person, they were a meal," Colyar says.
When he won $100,000 in Ed McMahon's "Star Search" in 1990, Colyar gave half his winnings to the homeless.
"Helping people pours manna upon me," he says.
He met his future wife a month after arriving in Southern California, and they've been devoted to each other for 20 years. "She walked through crack addiction with me, 'til I was able to get to the other side," he says.
Shortly after arriving, Colyar became friends with Dan Enright, the producer who rigged the game show "Twenty One" in the late '50s. Enright, who died in 1992, continued to have some success after the game-show scandal, and he helped Colyar's career when he could.
He got Colyar a part in the 1988 made-for-TV movie "Necessity." "I was horrible," Colyar says. "I was so bad. I can't wait to get rich so I can buy back and burn all the copies."
He landed parts in several movies, including "Hollywood Shuffle" (1987) and "Hot Shots Part Deux" (1993), and a number of TV shows, including hosting BET's "Live From L.A."
He's got some big things coming up, he says, including a 90-minute documentary about his comedy and a possible TV series starring Eddie Griffin as a father on welfare raising three children. "I play the heroin-addicted uncle," Colyar says.
The Fitzgeralds show was a lucky circumstance. He and his wife were in town doing another show and a jazz band left the Wednesday-night slot. Colyar has been commuting ever since, bringing with him his combination of humor, goodwill and social lessons.
"We're not moving mountains here," he says. "But we are touching lives."
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