Preview
STEVEN WRIGHT
Wednesday, January 22
Jack Singer Concert Hall (CPA)
It used to be that deadpan comedy was shunned by the majority of society. It was best left to the bohemians living in their art ghettos. Too many people had trouble telling the difference between somebody with a deadpan sense of humour and a madman. No, back then people only tolerated vaudeville schtick comedians.
Things gradually changed. Bob Newhart, Coyle and Sharpe, Woody Allen, the Zucker Brothers and the Indian guy who ran the hardware section at Ribtor brought deadpan closer to the mainstream, but as they went on to larger success, they either watered down the deadpan or threw it out altogether. But at least deadpanners were no longer put in institutions.
Then came Steven Wright. He once said, "There’s a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore, with a pole, looking like an idiot." Similarly, there is a thin wall between the madman and the deadpan. The madman is audibly having a heated argument with no one about Lee Harvey Oswald, while the deadpan plays the speeches of John F. Kennedy really loud at 45 r.p.m.
Despite his expressionless Boston accent and a repertoire of surreal one-liners that demanded above-average intelligence from his audiences, Wright took deadpan to unforeseen heights of acceptance in the 1980s. He still fills auditoriums, even though his stand-up routine has been featured on only one album (1985’s I Have a Pony), two pay-TV specials, and numerous appearances on The Tonight Show and Letterman.
Wright’s genius is in his ability to distil comedy right down to the language. No gimmicks, just a lot of observations about stuff that isn’t there, but would be friggin’ hilarious if it were.
Fearing a time when the fundamentalists gain control over society and attempt to banish deadpan and institutionalize its practitioners once again, a discussion about the secrets of deadpan was arranged with its reigning king on the eve of his return to Calgary.
Fast Forward: Does the routine you’re touring behind now include a lot of new material?
Steven Wright: Some of it is new. Some it is old. Some of it’s in between. When you say new, what are you measuring it from?
About five inches.
Ahhhh! Some of it will be new, as in trying it out for the first time and some it will be new stuff from the last tour I did. It’s all mixed.
How did you originally hone your deadpan craft?
I didn’t, really. It’s just how I talk. I wrote material. I went up on a stage and said it. I didn’t even know I was deadpan until people started commenting on what I was saying on stage. I was talking like that my whole life. No one would ever say, "I know him, that deadpan guy."
You are the torchbearer of deadpan from the end of the last century and into the new millennium. Did you wind up doing any of the deadpan comedy clubs in the Midwest?
What do you mean? Are there clubs called The Deadpan Comedy Clubs?
Don’t they have a big deadpan circuit down there?
I don’t know. Are you kidding?
I could be.
I’ve never heard of that so you must be kidding. I don’t even think about it (being deadpan). I just focus on the material. It definitely affects what is happening, but that’s like thinking about my height. It’s just done. My height is done! It’s the material.
Exactly. That’s the great thing about it. You’ve distilled the comedy right down to the language. That’s what makes it so funny – there’s no gimmick in there. That’s a compliment. Did you ever consider joining a deadpan comedy troupe?
You’re obsessed with this deadpan.
Yeah. I wanted this to be a discussion about deadpan.
No. I haven’t considered that, but if there was one, I would look into it, then not join. I’m not into groups. I like groups. I like the Rolling Stones, but I don’t want to have my own group. I wouldn’t want to lead one. I wouldn’t want to be in one. I quit the Cub Scouts after two weeks because I didn’t like being in a group.
That’s probably because the Cub Scouts didn’t have many good songs, did they? If they had more songs like the Stones would you have stuck in there?
No.
You do play guitar, though.
Yep.
What kind of guitar do you play?
A Guild.
Why do you like the Guild?
It’s not that I like the Guild. It’s that when I was in the store trying them out, I liked its sound the best. The fact it was Guild didn’t mean anything.
Have you ever tried the pigeon-gut strings?
No. Pigeon-gut? No, I haven’t. Have you?
Yeah. I don’t like them because you really have to feed them a lot.
They probably have a nice sound to them, though. If you could deal with taking care of them and honing them, the outcome would probably be amazing.
Exactly. I think they’re a step down from the canary-gut strings. You know, you teach them to sing. But they outlawed those along the lines of ivory and how it’s used for piano keys. Do you have any thoughts on using animals for instruments?
I think they should just cut out the middle-man and just have the animals learn the instruments themselves.
I agree. Which animal do you think would be the best for that?
I would say birds because they would have more of an overall picture of what’s going on.
Birds would never be able to play a brass instrument because they don’t have lips.
Yes. But I don’t think birds would be into brass instruments. I don’t have anything to go on that assumption, apart from these volumes of books.
Who do you think is the best deadpan guitar player?
I would say Walter Peterson. He’s in a New Zealand band called the Wild Trees. He is the fastest and he has the least expression – like a hooker in a rush.
Have you ever heard bluesman T Model Ford? I think he’s the most deadpan guitar player. I’m judging that on his song "I’m Insane" ?
If he was being filmed and the camera was just on his face, would you never know in a million years that he was playing an instrument?
I’ve never seen him play live.
Then how do you know he’s deadpan?
That’s the whole thing. I can’t really tell whether he’s deadpan or matter-of-fact. That’s my preconception. For you, though, a real deadpan player comes down to the expression on the face as opposed to the musical expression.
Oh yeah! To me, what he (Peterson) was playing on the guitar wasn’t even connected. In fact, the more wild he is playing, his face is doing nothin’. That’s what I was basing all my comments on.
Have you ever tried playing an electric?
Yes, I have. Just for a few minutes. I tried to play it like I play acoustic. Having never played an electric, it’s a whole other thing. It was weird….
I was actually thinking of a toaster.
I thought you meant a guitar. I’ve played an acoustic toaster and it has a whole other thing going on than an electric. At first I wasn’t used to it because I grew up dealing with electric toasters.
The whole technique changes.
Absolutely! Once you adjust, it opens up a whole other world. I don’t even pay attention to the toast. I’m only playing it for myself, really. I’m disregarding the bread and the toast.
That’s the whole thing with the technology. People have taken that modern toast for granted. No one likes the acoustic toast anymore.
Unless you were really into it. If you wanted to really appreciate things from the ’50s, you’d be into acoustic toast, but those are very small pockets of people.
Definitely! Those are the purists. You would probably find them at a lot of folk festivals.
With little bread crumbs in their beards. This is in the top 10 most insane interviews I’ve ever had – and that’s a compliment. This one might have to go on my Web site.
Even though you don’t consider yourself deadpan, does it ever get you in trouble? For instance, when you walk into a bank and you say, "I want to make a deposit." If the teller recognizes you, would she not know how to react because she thinks it’s one of your jokes?
Yes. That has happened in stores. I might say, "Excuse me, where are the stoves?" Then someone might start laughing. That’s because unless they knew me personally, they would only hear me saying insane things, so they think, "Well this must be insane." They’re only going by their own experiences and I can’t blame them.
How do you get around that?
I wait for it to be over and I ask them again. Then they know that I’m really asking them and there’s no second part. There’s no punch line. They know that I’m not telling the same joke twice and they catch on that I really do want to know where the stoves are. But they don’t know why. No one will ever know why.
For aspiring deadpan comedians, would you recommend they study under somebody?
I would say, "Ignore everything." It would help in the long run, because you wouldn’t have meaningless information to accidentally cause an expression.
I once studied under a guy named Al. He always wore a lobster suit and was so good at deadpan that he never let on.
That is a pro, my friend!
You’ve only ever put out one record. Do you do that to save the material for the live show?
That was part of it. Every time you make a record, you have to write another record. I thought I would just do live stuff and keep piling it up. Had I made more records along the way, I would be three minutes into my second record. I will only make one record per century.
That’s the great thing when you make a live record – you can do all those tricks in the studio to make it sound better. You could layer jokes on top of each other.
Yeah. Like having me saying part of the sentence from Australia or have me doing back-ups behind myself or delaying it so there’s a slight echo. People just don’t tell jokes in the world any more. And they’re not telling them as they happen. It’s all layered with 24 tracks of vowels and 60 tracks of consonants.
That’s the problem with a lot of comedy records nowadays. You’re not getting a live performance. It’s practically a studio record.
You can hear the synthesized essence. There’s no soul.
Or they’ve probably got some engineer sampling someone else.
Or even sampling the artist himself. He said the sentence two years ago, but he said it better then, so the producer says, "How can we put it in here? We’ll hide the edit with a woman laughing loudly in San Diego from 1987." Maybe they’ll even put fake hiss in so that it seems more real – like hiss from the ’70s that never happened in the ’90s.
When comedy records were big in the ’70s, it’s because they sounded warmer. Whereas with digital recording, it just doesn’t sound as funny.
Yeah, from the album and the needle and all that. Most people don’t know, though. They don’t care. They’re just zombies buying another thing. It’s the purists who notice.
If you’re recording more live records, does that mean you have to make the live show more exciting? Say, would you introduce hypnotism into your act? Right off the beginning of your show, you’ve got half-a-dozen people from the audience. You hypnotize them into thinking they’re slugs and you leave them at the back of the stage for the whole show, then you proceed with your routine. To me that would be taking deadpan to a whole new level.
They’re slugs did you say? Sitting in chairs behind me? That definitely would take it to a new level. Maybe I wouldn’t do that, but maybe I’ll continue using the gospel singers – the 50 women in robes that are behind me during some jokes. They sing, very quietly though. They take up five tour buses.
That’s really got to eat into your pay. How do you do that?
I can only do that occasionally, when my accountants are out of the country.
Is there anything you wanted to talk about?
No. What I wanted to talk about, we covered. Coincidentally, you hit on all subjects. |
