Being funny in a dangerous time: Veteran comic sticks to his guns in sensitive era

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – The Vancouver edition of the Just for Laughs comedy festival is just two weeks away. The 2019 line-up includes heavyweights like Aziz Ansari and Howie Mandel to The Daily Show’s Roy Wood Jr. and YouTube star Flula Borg.

Veteran stand-up comic Dave Attell performs at the Vogue Theatre on February 14th. He looks forward to the opportunity.

“Vancouver has a big comedy scene and I hope to be able to hold my own.”

Attell has been to Vancouver before and admits some cities are more receptive to his comedy than others.
“Yeah, I would say that some towns are a little bit more PC or woke or whatever,” he said. “I feel for them because they really are missing out on some great, filthy jokes!”

Clearly subtlety isn’t his strong suit.

“So, if you’re coming out for a TED convention, I’m not the guy. But if you’re coming out for some raw, risqué material, then yeah, you might have a good time.”

NEWS 1130’s John Ackermann reached Attell by phone earlier this week:

Q: For those not familiar with your type of comedy, what can they expect?

It’s going to be a fun night. I do a lot of jokes — it’s definitely an adult show, not very political. I just talk mostly about the travelling and what’s been going on in my life. It really does kind of roll from town to town and from show to show.

Q: This isn’t your first time here. Do you tailor your act to specific cities or do you do any sort of crowd work or do you just do your thing and that’s it?

Well, [the Vogue] is a big theatre so I don’t know how much crowd work you can do, but I do like to talk about the city and usually the people enjoy that, to hear about their town, and I usually try and do a little of my own research to see what’s going on in the town and get a couple of lines off on that. People travel all the time now so you can talk about any town and there is usually someone from there. Vancouver is very far away from New York so there is a bit of an exotic quality to getting there and just being there, so it’s exciting.

Q: Do you find that some cities are more uptight than others?

I’d say that groaning now is almost a part of it. I used to count the laughs, now when I listen to my tape, I count the groans, to see how I’m doing that way. You know, I usually work with whatever comes back at me in terms of the crowd, you know.

Q: Given the times that we’re living in, a lot of comics don’t feel like they can play college campuses anymore. Are you caught up in that as well or do you just do what you do?

College campuses? Have you seen what I look like? I can’t even walk past one. I’m pretty creepy looking! Yeah, I’d say that’s true. Because I used to do colleges all the time and, to be honest, they never were good. They really are never good because these kids, usually if they’re going to like a comedy at a college campus. That means a lot of things. Like, they’re doing laundry, they’re waiting for the cafeteria to open. Unless it’s a big show, because they have, like, their own little world that they live in there. But, yeah, I would say that, like, it’s definitely not a wild, fun experience like you would think college is. They’re pretty serious, you know. I remember doing a show at a small college, and, like, all the kids were on their phones. So I was like, ‘Are you here for me or the wi-fi? Like, I really don’t know what you’re doing here? So, it’s hard to get them to disconnect from the web, the crowd. So, yeah, I don’t do colleges. I’m old. I’m headed more towards cruise ships than I am colleges!

Look for Attell’s latest comedy special “Bumping Mics” on Netflix. He can also be seen on the current season of “Crashing” alongside fellow comic Pete Holmes.

As for Just For Laughs, head to jflnorthwest.com for tickets and showtimes.