IN A FEW days the Great Canadian Laugh Off will begin. A 10-night countdown where 64 comics will compete for $25,000. It happens every year.
Usually around this time I start biting my nails, and it’s not because I’m so excited to see who the winner will be. It’s because I host that show. It’s the only bit of stand-up I ever do any more.
Back in the ’70s and ’80s, I performed every night — nine shows a week, 52 weeks a year. It was the centre of my existence. I would sleep all day to be fresh for the shows that would consume me, and that convinced me that performing stand-up was my sole purpose on earth.
From the beginning, I saw my job not as an entertainer, but as a gladiator. Comedy was a blood sport, and to this day former patrons approach me gingerly to remind me what I said to them while they sat in the front row.
Ah, the front row. It’s where you sat with your friend or date knowing I would mercilessly peel off layers of their ego for the shocked delight of 200 strangers.
After a while, customers wised up to the trick and sat further back to avoid being part of the public flogging. No problem. I bought a police searchlight and wired it up onstage to illuminate my victims in rows six, seven, eight and beyond. No one was safe.
Everybody howled. I have the tapes to prove it.
I had no theatre training, which is normal for most stand-ups. I did a lot of public speaking and debating in school but very little acting. But when I worked at Harbourfront, before I started Yuk Yuk’s, I was asked to host a new talent night. I did and I was comfortable in the spotlight.
Slowly, some kind of persona grew, and I used the lines that worked again and again. My timing got better, and I started to recognize the kind of material that worked for me.
I had a grand time performing for over two decades. But then the rot set in. I began to repeat myself. My onstage persona started to leak out into my offstage life, making me a difficult person to be around. The business grew, and I couldn’t pay proper attention to it with a performance monkey on my back.
And I became a Cokehead — not the drug, the soda — knocking back 15 to 20 glasses a night for a quick sugar fix.
In the early ’90s, I slowed down my performance schedule and then quit altogether in 1994.
Do I miss it? I certainly don’t miss the lifestyle, but I still think funny and wish I could share my insights with a larger audience than a cocktail party.
Writing is a halfway house along the path of this addiction but doesn’t satisfy the primal joy of hearing a group of strangers squeal with delight. But my upcoming public performance looms over me, making me queasy and giving me fitful nights. On the night of the show, I’m tied to a pretty tight script.
But sometimes there’s a glitch, and I have to kill some time, improvising like the old days. I’m worried I’ll have nothing to say. Yet every year a combination of adrenalin and memory kicks in, and I’m back terrifying and exhilarating the front row. For a few moments, it’s the ’80s again, and you can’t get me off the stage.