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Going to Hell Sundays


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Steve Martin had it right: Comedy is not pretty. Cussin’ and fussin’ and touchin’ touchy topics: Funny people are just funnier when unrestrained. Yet, ironically, HBO is bluer than most stops on today’s standup comedy circuit.

According to Going to Hell Sundays host and creator Derek Sweet, this pervasive comedy censorship leaves great, over-the-edge jokes untold, big laughs un-laughed and comics itching to work their new shock comedy night at Balance Lounge and Eatery. A comic for the last two-and-a-half years, Sweet spends a lot of time on the road with other standup artists. “A lot of these headliners have this hilarious, edgy material, some of it either dirty or controversial,” he explains.

He tells comics they have to perform these jokes onstage, but most aren’t willing to risk their paycheques. As an outlet for pent-up comedic filth and fury, and a service to comedy consumers who don’t know what they’re missing, he’s launched the city’s (and perhaps Canada’s) only weekly dark-and-dirty comedy review.

Sweet has suffered a bit of blowback already. An ad he placed in Fast Forward Weekly received so many complaints that he pulled it and replaced it with another: Rio de Janeiro’s Christ the Redeemer statue sported graffiti and Joker makeup.

The complainers, he figures, weren’t people who’d come to the show anyway. He also stresses that Going to Hell isn’t a Christian-bashing comedy show, but simply that any material is fair game. Atheist bashing, for example.

So, is it funny? The proof is in the pudding. Lights go down, Sweet takes to the venue’s tiny stage, gets on its lone mic and gives the crowd a polite welcome. Politeness then vanishes for the rest of the evening as the first stream of comics gets F-wordy. Mario Lopez, the first of a string of amateurs, gets his biggest laugh by being shorter than the mic stand. He leads with self-deprecation, admitting to a fear that Viagra might burst his wee goods like a wiener in a microwave.

Mike Tod tells the audience, “I’m a huge fan of you, too.” He gets a lot of laughs simply reading posts taken from a Christian rock website in a spot-on Alabama teen girl voice.

Then he tells us there are three things we ought to know about him.

“I’m not a racist, I love salmon and I hate naggers.” The room is silent. “They’re always telling you what to do….” Sitting inches from the stage, I sympathetically tell him I got that.

“Are you that guy from Fast Forward? Please spell that right,” he says plaintively.

Mary Shatshneider’s best joke is her name. She translates it from German so the audience will remember it: “Cat wieners.” (Two comics, two wiener jokes: What are the odds?) She wears a green, felt hat that causes the next comic, Darrel Mack, to quip: “I loved that girl when she was up north making me toys.” Ironically, the biggest laugh of the night thus far is for the sweetest joke.

Ben Miner is next, and he’s polished, really funny and undeniably dirty. He starts with a happy mumbled ramble. “Shit. Fuck me. Fuck yeah. Calgary. I like Calgary.” He takes dirty in an unexpected direction with a story about the active ingredient in raccoon spray. “How shit are you at everything in your life when you have to collect bear piss?”

Next guy: “Is it still rape if it’s a corpse?” So, yeah, it’s not merely a Christian-bashing show.

Comic after comic takes the stage. It’s a barrage of gags: Topics include abortion, male menstruation, Hitler as standup comic and the clawing of testicles by "fuckin' cats."

So, is Going to Hell Sundays, funny? Due to sheer volume, it can’t help but be. The jokes aren’t all gems, but no comedy venue could promise as much. I’m an admittedly tough mark, but I laughed a lot. And this dirty thing Sweet has created is a fascinating anthropological experiment in the boundaries of comedy and taste. The swings and misses are thrillingly painful by turns. The hits are oh-so sweet. Comedian and crowd get that knowing gleam in their eyes: You’ll never hear that on another stage in this town.