Comedian Roundtable

A discussion with Winter Comedy Arts Festival’s Dick Gregory, Robert Wuhl and Festival Co-Founder Jeff Garlin

Feb. 10, 2013

We caught up with a few of the headliners of this week’s Traverse City Winter Comedy Arts Festival and got their thoughts on comedy, coming to Traverse City and some of their future projects.

Activist and comedian Dick Gregory has been performing stand up comedy since the late ’50s. He entered the national comedy scene in 1961 when Chicago’s Playboy Club, as a direct request from publisher Hugh Hefner, booked him as a replacement for a white comedian. Now 80, the African American comedian and civil rights activist whose social satire changed the way white Americans perceived African American comedians is as feisty as ever. While in the ’70s, Gregory abandoned full-time comedy to focus on his political interests, which widened from race relations to include such issues as violence, world hunger, capital punishment, drug abuse and poor health care. He has now returned to the stage making 100 plus appearances a year. He will be presented with the TC Winter Comedy Arts Legends Award on Saturday at 6 pm prior to his performance at the City Opera House.

Northern Express: Mr. Gregory you have been an outspoken critic of the injustices in our society for 60 years especially in the area of race. You have used your stand up career to at times make light of these, do you have any sense that race relations have improved at all in our country?

Dick Gregory: Yes and no, the physical has improved, but not the mental. What I mean by that is after listening to white folks for years, I assumed that all black folks looked alike. Well after President Obama was elected, I haven’t had one white person come up to me and say, "Excuse me, Mr. President." So I guess we don’t all look alike. But sure, it has improved, but that is like saying we have cured some of the cancer in your body but there is some still there that you can live with. Well, you still have cancer in your body. The same can be said when it comes to race relations. It is a mental thing now, it is in the mind. That is where racism exists, and now we are trying to rewrite history like some things didn’t even exist.

NE: You mean like with the N-word being removed from literature and historical based films?

DG: Exactly what the hell is the N-word? I know you are trying to be respectful but if you ask a 12 year old kid, "Hey, some one called the president the N-word, they would say, "the N-word. That’s the 14th letter in the alphabet."

Look, I didn’t invent the word nigger, it is a part of our history and to suggest that we not use the word in the context it was used in recent films like Django Unchained and Lincoln would be to create a lie. I know when I wrote my bestselling autobiography back in the early ’60s and titled it Nigger, bookstores had real issues. I remember my mother being upset with me for the title. I just told her, "don’t worry, anytime you hear a white person say Nigger they are just promoting my book." I am just saying we can’t pretend these things never existed or don’t exist today.

NE: When you perform in Traverse City will your comedy routine focus on the societal ills of today?

DG: Sure, there will be a focus on what is going on today. It is actually easier for me to do my type of comedy today because when I started, there was just three TV networks and a handful of radio stations. Now there are 40,000 internet radio stations, cable TV and more. So there is no such thing as an uninformed person. There might be wrongly informed people but for the most part, with all that information people are probably over-informed.

I will address the thugs in the media and all the lies they are creating. Thank God we have people like Michael Moore who are willing to speak and write the truth. Michael Moore changed the way people looked at the news. He changed the belief system. He proved that you don’t need to put on a $4,000 Neiman Marcus suit and wear a $400 pair of shoes to get people to believe you. What Michael Moore showed us is money is not power, education is not power. Information is power and if you are giving people bad information you eventually find you don’t have power.

NE: So you feel that the media and the government are lying to us?

DG: Look I am 80 years old. I remember the time I use to lie and rewrite the truth to get a girlfriend. So If I would lie to get some booty what do you think these thugs will do to control the whole world?

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Robert Wuhl will bring his popular HBO one-man-show Assume The Position with Mr. Wuhl to Traverse City for two shows: Friday night at 6 pm at the State Theatre and then again on Saturday at 8:15 at the State Theatre.

Wuhl has carved out a successful stand up and big screen career mixing in several television shows in between. He played reporter Alexander Knox in the 1999 "Batman" movie. Wuhl was also in "Bull Durham," "The Bodyguard," and "Good Morning, Vietnam" as well as being in Madonna’s 1985 video for her hit song, "Material Girl." From 1996 to 2002 he wrote and starred in the HBO series "Arli$$" as the title character, an agent for high-profile athletes. He has been a frequent panelist on ESPN and hosted a sports business and entertainment daily talk radio show for Westwood One and when he catches his breath he plays a judge on the TNT series "Franklin & Bash."

NE: You’re bringing the stage version of your popular HBO show "Assume the Position with Mr. Wuhl" to Traverse City. How will that work?

Robert Wuhl: I will make it more autobiographical. I have some of the bits from HBO incorporated but a lot of new bits. This will be more interactive. I have a pop quiz segment where we will bring someone up on stage.

NE: Your comedic career has been very diverse, from stand up to the movies with some TV and radio in the mix. Do you enjoy the diversification of your career?

RW: I do enjoy doing a lot of different things when I come to Traverse City. I will be just wrapping up in Houston where Rebecca Reynolds (Leelanau Peninsula resident) and I just had a workshop of my new play Hit Lit that I wrote. It will make its world premiere next month in New York at the Queens Theatre and I will be there to direct it. So I am going from Traverse City and doing stand up to New York directing my play. So I am very fortunate and enjoy doing different things.

NE: You are a big sports fan, what are your favorite sports?

RW: Yes I have three favorite sports: baseball and baseball and baseball in that order. Since I am coming to Michigan I will share that I have two longtime friends in Dave Dombrowski (Tigers General Manager) and Jim Leyland. I’m definitly a huge Tigers fan and follow them closely. In fact, I feel that it is a great travesity that Jack Morris is not in the Hall of Fame.

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TC Winter Comedy Arts Festival Co-Founder Jeff Garlin will make several stand up appearances throughout the weekend in addition to his role of co-hosting the Festival with Michael Moore. Garlin, a Chicago Native, got his stand up start while in college. At the age of 22, he joined The Second City comedy troupe. Over the years Garlin has made several appearances on late night TV and on the big screen. He was a part of the 2007 Traverse City Film Festival with his directorial debut "I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With." It was during that visit that he and Michael Moore hatched the idea of a Winter Comedy Festival. Garlin also co-stars and is the executive producer of the HBO hit series "Curb Your Enthusiasm."

NE: Jeff Garlin, you are busy between your television work, making movies and being in demand for stand up. Why get involved in running a comedy festival in Northern Michigan, especially in the winter time?

Jeff Garlin: Well first, I have a tremendous amount of respect for Michael Moore and when I came to Traverse City for the Film Festival for the first time, we started talking about the concept and I thought it was great. We felt winter was the best time because by the middle of February, people there need some comedic relief. We also thought this would create a nice economic shot in the arm for the area and all reports are that is the case.

NE: You grew up in Chicago as a kid.

Did you ever visit Northern Michigan or were you familiar with it?

JG: No I never visited it. I mean, I looked on a map and saw that there was a Northern Michigan but I really didn’t know anything about the area. My first time visiting was with the Second City Troupe at the Grand Traverse Resort in the mid-’80s. It was my very first show with them but it was a private corporate event so people living there didn’t get to see it.

NE: You have enjoyed success as both a stand up comedian and on TV and in the movies. Often, comedians who make it in TV or the movies quit the stand up gig but you have chosen not to. Why?

JG: Yeah they do. For me, the acting came quicker than my stand up career. I have been doing stand up for 30 years and it didn’t come overnight. I don’t look at things as different or better for me, I look at whatever it is that allows me to be funny. So I don’t worry if what I am doing is acting or stand up, as long as I am having fun and it is important to me to have fun at whatever I am doing. I am also doing a lot of stand up right now because I am getting ready to do a stand up special for TV.

NE: Speaking of upcoming projects, you have a new movie coming out this spring on idiotic little league parents.

JG: Yes it is called "Dealing With Idiots." See, these parents and coaches never realize that it is about the kids. Sports is about learning sportsmanship and the skills associated with the sport the kids are participating in. It is not about the parents being competitive with each other and acting like a bunch of idiots.

Jeff Garlin will perform several times throughout the weekend including hosting the popular Combo Platter (free) at Midnight at Horizon books on Saturday night at Midnight. For a complete listing of all the performances and activities with the Traverse City Winter Comedy Arts Festival, Feb 14-17; and to purchase tickets, check out wintercomedy.org. Note that Rick Coates will be tweeting not so funny stuff over the weekend.  Follow him @rcoates101.