Tri-City Herald
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--------------------Cunning comedy
This story was published Friday, March 24th, 2006By Dori O'Neal, Herald staff writerNot all comedians require such topics as farting, belching, vulgar language or redneck fever to get their message across.Take Adam Kessler, for example. His comedy routine is a far cry from the crude behavior of Larry the Cable Guy.Kessler can get a laugh without wallowing in dunderhead-land. In fact, comedy isn't just a gig to this 29-year-old Pasco man. It's an intelligent design meant to tickle the funny bone as well as make you think outside the box."I've been a huge fan of stand-up since I was a kid, but I like smart comedy," Kessler said. His favorite comedians are funny men like Bill Maher and George Carlin, who aren't afraid to use their intelligence humorously.That kind of comedy doesn't pander to washed-out topics such as the side effects from taking a pill to the forgetfulness that comes with smoking weed, Kessler said.Kessler's style of comedy goes something like this: $70 billion dollars to aid Iraq after we bomb them? This sounds like a false insurance claim. We bomb their country and then realize they're not all terrorists, so we offer to rebuild, and we ask, "What did you guys have?" The response, "Everything you guys have." So we give them $70 billion. They had three tents. And they weren't even nice tents.Smart humor addresses issues and irony instead of slamming the characters of particular people, he said. Of course, that can be a tough audience to play to on any given night."A tough audience for me is a nonresponsive one," Kessler said. "That silence can be a killer. But I don't look for victims in the audience, either, and I tune out any negativity that might come from a heckler in the audience. I just talk about real stuff we all deal with every day."Comedy clubs boomed in the 1980s, but when the '90s rolled around the appeal waned. Kessler believes those thriving years of comedy had to do with the mass appeal of certain comics making names for themselves on the circuit."I think back in the 1980s when stand-up comedy was on a roll, it produced great names like Jerry Seinfeld, Jay Leno and Roseanne," he said. "Those people got talk shows, sitcoms and movies. The shows are etched in people's minds as great, but the shows ended."I think people hunger for that again. There are comedy competitions in nearly every state and shows like America's Funniest Mom and Last Comic Standing, (which) are out there looking for the next Roseanne, Ellen (or) Seinfeld."Kessler was 12 years old when he decided comedy was his destiny."I would watch the stand-up comedians on television when I was a kid and pick my favorite jokes, then run to the living room to tell them to my mom," he said. "I would tell her the jokes and hope for a bigger laugh than what the comic got on TV. Then I would run back to the (TV) and get more material."That routine escalated into trying out jokes on other family members as well as his friends. Eventually, he started writing his own jokes."I was shy as a kid, but comedy gave me a way to bust out of that mode," Kessler said.His first stand-up gig came when he was 19, when he opened for a band at a Yakima night club."I only did about 10 minutes, but ever since then, I knew it was what I was meant to do," Kessler said.He took third place at the Brick Wall Comedy Club competition in Spokane. A few of his jokes also will be in the soon-to-be-released book Joke Express, by Judy Brown, a renowned comedy coach, writer and comedian.Kessler has dreams of performing comedy full time, but figures he has a few more years of practice at Northwest comedy clubs before he can get an audition for such famous Los Angeles clubs as Evening at the Improv or The Comedy Store.In the meantime, he performs frequently at Tri-City-area comedy clubs like The Tuscany Lounge at the Clarion Hotel in Richland, the Crazy Moose night club in Pasco, Joker's Comedy Club in Richland and Jack-son's Sports Bar in Richland, which is where he'll perform May 6.When Kessler isn't doing standup, he's a loan officer at a credit union in Richland.The pay is better as a loan officer at this stage of his comedy career, he said. He earns an average of about $125 per gig opening for a headliner, who can make up to $300 or more a night.Anyone interested in hiring Kessler to keep a gathering entertained can reach him via e-mail at
[email protected].* Reporter Dori O'Neal can be reached at 582-1514 or via e-mail at
[email protected].
