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JOHN BEUHLER - March 12, 2005
GUY MACPHERSON: So you're in Regina?
JOHN BEUHLER: Yeah.
GM: What are you doing?
JB: I'm doing a casino show. I'm opening for Brent
Butt.
GM: He got you that gig?
JB: Yeah, I guess so. We're writing the Junos, so I
guess he wanted to have someone who's writing with
him, just for convenience sake. So in the daytime we
can kinda write.
GM: How big a star is he now? Especially in Regina.
JB: In Regina it's amazing. Everybody's coming up to
him. It's so annoying. I'm having questions about
wanting to be any kind of famous, you know? Because he
gets just the biggest, weirdest mouth-breathers coming
up to him all the time. Just constantly.
GM: Richard Lett tells me he's getting great mileage
out of slamming Corner Gas.
JB: Yeah, he's a funny one. Because he thinks he's
trying to be an iconoclast, but he knows Brent so it's
not really an icon he's slamming; he's slamming the
dude that he knows.
GM: Did you work last night at the casino?
JB: Yeah. It was awesome. It went really, really well.
It was about 800 people in this really new facility.
It's really a nice place, with a follow spot and a
great sound system and everything.
GM: So when you pace the stage, they're there.
JB: Yeah. I even did some wind sprints to test the
guy.
GM: They're there to see Brent Butt, so how is it when
you come on? Do they go, 'Hey, you're not Brent Butt!'
JB: They're pretty pissed. I'm dodging ashtrays on
stage. No, they're okay. The first night, they had
this local deejay and he goes, 'Hey folks, it's Brent
Butt tonight!' And then he goes, 'But first there's
this guy from Vancouver. Please welcome John Beuhler.'
And literally said it like that. It was terrible.
Brent said that the Kids in the Hall, when he used to
open for them, it was the same kind of situation where
the fans were just rabid fans and they didn't want to
see anybody but the Kids in the Hall.
GM: How long do you do?
JB: Half an hour.
GM: How many are writing the Junos?
JB: I think it's me, Brent and Chris Finn.
GM: Everybody watched the Oscars because of Chris
Rock. So Brent is our Chris Rock. How much comedy will
there be? Because most of the show will be, 'And now
the winner for Best Fiddle Music...'.
JB: It's a music awards show, so I think it wouldn't
be as much as maybe someone who's hosting a movie
thing, or something like that. But it's still going to
be really funny. If Brent's doing it, it's going to be
good.
GM: And you'll be out there in Winnipeg?
JB: Yup, I'm going to Winnipeg.
GM: How long have you been doing standup?
JB: About eight years now.
GM: What was the first corner you turned when you
moved to another level?
JB: I guess it was doing your first half an hour.
GM: Because when you start out, you have what? Ten
minutes? Five minutes?
JB: When you start out, you have like five. Four to
five. Everybody thinks they have more. It's so funny
when you see younger guys go, 'Yeah, I got half an
hour.' And then you realize it's not really a
headliner quality half an hour because there are not
enough laughs in it. And it's not good enough. When
you get a solid half an hour and you do really well
for half an hour, it's really... And then an hour.
GM: How long do you have now?
JB: I've done an album, so I'm trying to get away from
doing stuff that I've done on the album because I'm
really sick of it. I just want to grow a little bit
more. I don't want to become like Richard Lett or
something like. Like all those guys from the Old West
with a covered wagon with all the pots and pans on it:
'I've got some jokes I've been collecting for years.'
They're all old and useless. I want to keep it fresh
and produce stuff and get stuff out there. ... I was
trying to clean up a lot of stuff and get a lot of the
stuff that I'd done earlier out. I recorded it last
year and there was a Titanic joke on there, if that
tells you how old some of the stuff was. I'm cleaning
out the basement. I'm almost ready to do another one
now.
GM: Because you have that much more new material?
JB: Yeah, I had a lot left over. Granted, it might be
a little bit different stuff. It's a little newer. It
might be a little edgier, too, and stuff that's a
little more topical. I don't want to do jokes about
universal shit all the time. Like cat and dog jokes
are going to be good forever, but I don't want to tell
them forever.
GM: What is your goal in your topics? Isn't comedy
about the universal?
JB: Maybe 'universal' is a bad word. Maybe 'timeless'
is better. I don't want to do jokes that have an
unlimited shelflife.
GM: So you want things that are more relevant to
people right away.
JB: Yeah.
GM: But that kind of hurts if you're making a cd
because a year goes by and people say, 'Oh, that's
old.'
JB: Yeah, but jokes do have a shelflife. You can't
just be stagnated and do the same stuff or you become
like an old road guy who's telling the same joke for
the thousandth time and wants to kill himself.
GM: Andrew Grose, every time you see him it's his
anniversary.
JB: Yeah, and that's even more disillusioning if you
watch him more than once. It's not just that, 'oh,
he's telling the same joke', it's that he's lying
bald-facedly. It's a different direction I want to go.
I want to be cleaner and I want to be more topical.
Because old dick jokes are not doing it for me
anymore. The album is littered with them, though!
GM: How old are you?
JB: I'm 27 right now. Just turned.
GM: When did you win the Homegrown competition?
JB: I guess that was two years in. I was 21.
GM: Are you still with Kirk Talent?
JB: Yeah, definitely.
GM: Is that acting stuff or comedy stuff?
JB: That's for acting. I tell the joke that my agent's
always telling me it's really slow for ugly guys right
now. Which is basically the truth, you know? (laughs)
It's like, 'It's so slow, it's really slow'. Meanwhile
Sam [Easton] is going out for a million things.
GM: He's not exactly hot.
JB: He's got a look to him. He's got a little
sum'in-sum'in.
GM: I guess.
JB: But you know what I mean. It's always slow or
something, and then the part for John Belushi came up
and I got an audition for that. Hey, nobody thinks I'm
that attractive.
GM: Belushi's ugly brother... Are you a Yuk Yuk's
comic?
JB: I wouldn't call myself a Yuk Yuk's comic. I work
in their clubs, but I go eat at Tim Horton's and I'm
not a Tim Horton's guy.
GM: What year did you move to Montreal?
JB: Two years ago, so 2003.
GM: And how long did you stay there?
JB: About a year and a half.
GM: You moved there because you wanted to get the
festival?
JB: I was auditioning out here and nothing happens,
nothing happens. 'Oh, we see people from all over the
world. You've gotta be great to get the festival.' So
I moved there and I get put on four different shows.
And then from doing the four different shows, they're
like, 'Oh, you ARE okay. Would you like to do a gala?'
The whole showcasing system is so retarded.
GM: Is it because it's not an accurate reflection at
what the comics can do in only five minutes?
JB: Especially Canadians. I mean, Americans are just
so much better at just packaging everything and
shaving the doorhandles off of it and being all slick
and everything. Canadians take a more organic approach
to standup and that's why they're more successful. If
you can go through your whole act and eliminate every
word that you don't really need, you become this
really homogenous group that you see in LA all the
time. You don't even know who's telling the joke. And
the only reason this guy's different from this guy is
because he's black or he's gay or this guy's got long
hair or this guy's got a hat on. That sets people
apart, right? They kind of polish their personality
off of their jokes which is something I think the
showcasing method really encourages. The States for me
is not really... Especially when you go to LA, you go,
'Oh, okay, this isn't really standup.' It all just
comes down to what you look like. That's pretty much
what it's going to be. Espcially nowadays. It's not
like the '70s when everybody was ugly. Now there's
people that look like they're on The O.C. that'll be
funnier than you. They're just showcasing the same
seven minutes their whole life so they can just crank
it out perfectly everytime and know everybody eyebrow
arch in their whole goddamn act... I'm not bitter.
GM: Most Canadian comics' goal is to get down to the
States.
JB: Yeah, but there's a lot more people down there. I
don't think people realize that even if you're
hilarious you're still a flower and there are still
going to be weeds around. They're not going to be as
funny as you, but they're still going to be trying
just as hard to get stage time, pulling out contacts,
doing everything to kind of get what you want, too.
And people don't know what they want, too. The
standups are like, 'I dunno.' They want someone to
come to them and go, 'Here, would you be in this show?
Could we make a show about you?' Or 'Do you want to be
in this movie?' When you go down enough, and you read
enough of these goddamn scripts, it's like a dog that
plays volleyball. And you're sweating it! That's the
funny thing. You go home and you're like, 'I hope I
get this! I really could use this movie right now.'
GM: It's all just about the money, isn't it?
JB: I guess so. It's so much garbage in LA. The people
that do it are graduated from really good schools and
stuff, but they just don't have any idea about how
things work. Or they're not really great artists, or
they're failed artists. You have to look at them and
go, 'Be serious!' It's like, 'Yeah, I'm developing
this show. It's a cooking pet show. It's for pets, but
it's also cooking.' And they're like full of
themselves. And you're like, 'Are you fucking kidding
me? How can you be taking yourself so seriously?' I
kind of more respect people that make something where
they're from. Movies like Napolean Dynamite or Bottle
Rocket or Clerks. Things like this are more the way to
go rather than trying to get into some big budget
thing.
GM: Have you had many TV or movie parts?
JB: I did a movie that Quinten Tarantino produced. It
was probably one of the worst movies of all time. It
was called Stark Raving Mad.
GM: Don't know it.
JB: (laughs) Well, it went straight to video. It was
horrible. Lou Diamond Phillips was in it, if that's
any indication.
GM: That should have set off some red flags. Did you
have a big role?
JB: No, I was just a day player.
GM: A lot of standups use their act as a springboard
to acting or writing, which you appear to do both of.
What's your ultimate goal?
JB: To make films.
GM: Make as in direct, produce, act?
JB: Write, direct... I guess that's it. Or star in
them, hopefully.
GM: No, you're too ugly for that.
JB: I know. I'm too ugly for movies. Yeah, it's true.
They say Matt Damon can't be a leading man, I heard.
I'm like, 'Fuck! What chance do I have then?'
GM: Have you written any scripts?
JB: Yeah, I've written a few. I had to go through a
lot of the growing pains of it where you write a
hundred pages and you realize, 'I don't have an
ending.' Or something like that. You have to do a few
of those and bump around. And I did another one that
was terrible. Then you figure out, 'Oh, there has to
be three acts.' And you learn about story structure.
So I've gone through those now.
GM: Do you have any desire to go back to Montreal, now
that you've spent some time there?
JB: I like the town. For a town that has the comedy
festival, the comedy scene was a little bit light. But
it's definitely a good place to go. I wouldn't go
there in the winter again if you paid me, though. And
I'm not kidding.
GM: Do you think it helped that you were out there and
now people know you more?
JB: It comes down to really tangible things, is the
only thing you can really get out of it. The guy who
booked me at the gala has now changed positions in the
company so it's not like I can call him anymore. It
came down to just basically getting a gala tape.
That's pretty much it. I got that tape, and that was
good.
GM: Didn't you get representation, too?
JB: I've had about four or five managers in the past.
That's the thing. If you're not in LA, what the fuck's
the point of having a manager when you're in
Vancouver? That's as far as it goes for me. They keep
going, 'Oh yeah, you're great and blahbedy-blah and
we'll do all this stuff.' I actually sat down with
Paradigm. Paradigm really wanted me last festival.
They sat me down and I made sure: 'You're not just
going to shelf me, are you, like every other company
does?' And they go, 'No, no.' And I go, 'You're not
just shopping around to pick up people to justify your
trip here or anything?' and they go, 'No, no, you're
great, blahbidy-blah.' So now I can't get them on the
phone. Hollywood is so fucking retarded, oh my God.
Everybody kinda wants to get on you when you're making
money. Nobody wants to develop anybody because that
takes money, right? And there are enough people that
are already moving that they could get to give them
ten percent or whatever. So it's not a place to
develop, that's for sure.
GM: How did you get started in standup?
JB: I just went to an amateur night.
GM: What made you want to? Did somebody encourage you?
Did you secretly want to do it?
JB: I guess everybody else thought I was going to do
it. They thought it was the logical next step from
just being a jackass in school, and writing a lot in
school and doing comedy there. Not standup, but just
stuff for plays and stuff like that in drama. I was
always trying to be funny. I've always been a huge fan
of it. I used to go to parties Saturday nights and I
used to leave the party when everybody else was having
a great time so I could go home and watch Saturday
Night Live. Or find a room in the house and watch it.
I was always a big comedy nerd.
GM: That was before VCRs?
JB: (laughs) There you go. I am dumb. You know what? I
don't think taping it is very good. It's live, right,
so half of it is seeing it live and knowing that
you're up late Saturday night. My dad used to always
say, 'Well, you could tape it and watch it tomorrow
morning', but it's not Sunday morning material.
GM: No, because cartoons are on.
JB: Exactly.
GM: They used to show Letterman the next day at 4:30
in the afternoon. It just didn't work.
JB: Yeah, exactly. You didn't feel right. Yeah, so it
was just a logical progression of wanting to go in...
My dad took me to my first standup act when I was on a
cruise ship.
GM: Do you remember who it was?
JB: No. I think it was some nameless American fellow.
It was supposed to be the X-rated comedy show and
literally he said 'fuck' twice. And that was X-rated.
GM: How old were you?
JB: I wasn't old enough to be watching it. I think I
was 13. And we went up to Lafflines to watch some
people. Saw Darryl Lenox and Kerry Talmage. We went to
an amateur night, too, and the guys that were on
amateur night were terrible. And it was kind of a
negative way to get into it, which I'm not really
proud of, but I was like, 'I could do that! I could do
better than that guy.' (laughs) That was my
motivation.
GM: If your dad had done it all over again, you think
he would have wanted to get into it?
JB: He wasn't very funny at all.
GM: Really! But he liked going?
JB: He really liked trying to make people laugh but he
wasn't that funny. That's the biggest sin you can do
is try to be funny and not be funny. You can not be
funny or be funny, but if you try and you're not you
look like a big tool.
GM: Is your mom funny?
JB: My mom's really funny but she doesn't feel the
need to be funny. My dad would tell a joke and it
wouldn't be funny; then my mom would tell a joke every
month and it would be hilarious.
GM: Do they like your comedy?
JB: My dad doesn't so much now that he's dead.
(laughs)
GM: Did he?
JB: Yeah, he was a big supporter. He was one of my
biggest fans.
GM: And your mom?
JB: She thinks it's too blue. She would like something
that she could tell her friends at school. That's her
big thing. 'Write something I can at least tell my
friends. They can't listen to your album. It's
disgusting.'
GM: Is that one of the reasons you want to go cleaner?
JB: I find it's too easy right now. I'm really more
aware now of the shock laugh as opposed to the actual
good laugh. I mean, I think I have some smart shocking
jokes and some smart dirty jokes, but I can really now
tell the difference. Especially when watching other
people. And when I'm writing. 'Am I writing a story
about animal rape? Why am I doing this? Is this funny?
This isn't funny, it's just
can-you-believe-he-said-that? kind of thing.' Which,
you know, being a class clown and stuff like that half
of your jokes are that, right? 'Can you believe he
said that about the teacher?!' 'I can't believe he
just made that noise!' or whatever.
GM: Is it hard to transition now?
JB: It's definitely very hard. I'm having a really
difficult time with it.
GM: Did you start out at Lafflines?
JB: My first show was February 13th at Lafflines and I
did really well. Then Mark Dennison said that I could
come back and do the next day, which was the Friday,
and I was like, 'Oh my God! I can't believe it!'
Valentine's Day was the next day. The last thing they
wanted to see was me going up there; a little
zit-faced 19-year-old. They all just wanted to finish
off their dates pretty much.
GM: What's your worst gig ever?
JB: There are terrible ones that come along. I had to
do a show for 350 senior citizens who had been on a
bus tour from Toronto to Montreal that was supposed to
take five hours but there was a snow storm so it took
like eight or nine hours. And they were dead tired and
had been in the bus all day. And they put me on before
dessert. So they had just finished eating and they all
wanted to go to sleep. There's people shaking, there's
people with Band-aids on their face, tremors. Very,
very old people. And very, very hungry for dessert and
did not want to hear about bank machine jokes and shit
like that because they literally had no idea what I
was talking about. Debit card? Or Interac card? Or
bank card? What? There was a lady in the front row who
had been married for 63 years. It was the record so we
had her on the front stage. It was terrifying. I got
like literally no laughs for about a half an hour.
Literally nothing. And the lady who booked the whole
thing sat at the side of the stage shaking her head at
me. And I was like, this is obviously a fucking
terrible misbooking. This is the fault of my manager;
this isn't anybody else's fault. And the biggest
problem was that I had to come back the next night and
do the other half of the group, which was another 350
people the same age.
GM: Did it go any better?
JB: Well, I got in trouble because 1) they said I
talked too fast the first show. And I said 'God'
twice. They couldn't take that. The second show, the
whole day my agent was telling me, 'I guess you're not
a corporate comedian, blah blah blah. I guess this
isn't going to work out.' This is my first time being
on my own in a different province. I don't have any
safety net; I'm living hand-to-mouth. So I can't lose
this job. So I go on the internet and download a bunch
of clean street jokes. It was probably the worst
feeling in my stomach I've ever had going into the
second show. It was a cross between getting sent down
to the principal's office, going in for a root canal
and having to fight a bully all rolled into one. That
kind of sick feeling in your stomach of 'I don't want
this to happen; I don't want to do this for another
half an hour.' And I went out there and went, 'Who's
got adorable grandchildren?' They're all clapping. I
asked one guy where he was from and he's like, 'I'm
from Oakville.' And then almost everybody in the whole
room told me where they were from, unsolicitedly.
GM: That's good. It filled up the half hour.
JB: It was great. And I was like, 'Do you think this
hotel has too many elevators?' Because it was kind of
confusing; there was one elevator to the parking
garage and one to their room. 'Oh, yes.' They loved me
so much: 'There's way too many. It's complicated!'
They're giving me high-fives with IV's in their arm
and shit.
GM: So it was a happy ending.
JB: Yeah, but the first show, I swear to God, you want
to put your head in front of a shot gun, you know?
Terrifying.
GM: Would the Gala count as your biggest or best gig?
JB: Yeah, 2200 people.
GM: And you did so well.
JB: I did all right. I don't think I did great; I just
did well for the night because the night was so weird.
GM: You're trying to clean up your act, and I also
notice you're taking a page out of the Brent
Butt-Irwin Barker book of dressing for success.
JB: I'd never been a guy who can't wear a tie or 'Get
this off me!' I'm out of church now so I'll rip all
these clothes off me. But I like being Don
Cherryesque.
GM: I think it also helps create this image of being a
professional. Even when Brent was performing in front
of ten people at the downtown Well, he always came on
in a suit.
JB: Yeah, you wish you'd only be judged on your merit
but it definitely makes a difference. The Hives are a
band that went on David Letterman and they all had
suits on. They were just rocking like crazy, flipping
around and having a great time, and after they came
off, David Letterman was like, 'That's just great.
They come out and they look all good in their suits.
That's just a great group right there.' The older
crowd kind of really appreciate it. And girls, too. My
girlfriend says she really likes me in suits. So
that's when it started.
GM: Who are your comedy heroes? I know you have Alfred
E. Newman on your biceps. Any now that you just
worship?
JB: I'm a big Andy Kindler fan. I like Dave Attell
quite a bit. Andy Kindler's probably my favourite.
He's really inside. Paul Irving is a guy from Toronto.
He's an extremely funny guy. Very, very out there.
Hits you with left hooks all the time. We have just a
lot of really great comics in town, too. Irwin Barker
is hilarious. Brent Butt, obviously. Pete Kelamis is
very, very funny. Pretty much the guys I play poker
with.
GM: How does the Vancouver comedy scene compare with
the rest of the country? Our little fledgling scene
that everyone ignores.
JB: It's the best that I've seen. I haven't seen all
that Toronto has to offer, admittedly, but from what
I've seen, Vancouver has the most.... We just got a
new crop of hilarious guys a little while ago. The
Jeffrey Yus and Graham Clarks and stuff. And there's
even another group coming up now that I just saw that
are going to be really great. It was an amateur night
on Wednesday at Yuk Yuks. But the amount of people
that I saw that were obviously going to be very good
is kind of frightening for an old guy who's been doing
it for a while.
GM: An old 27-year-old guy?
JB: When I first came into it there were a lot of guys
that were getting a little bit nervous. And they would
give you the whole, 'Nice show. Yeah, I don't try to
kill all the time. You don't really learn a lot by
killing.' I got that a lot.
GM: Are you more supportive of the young guys?
JB: I'm definitely known as being an asshole to a lot
of them, which I think is pretty necessary to dissuade
the ones that you can tell are just going to be
wasting their time.
GM: What about the ones you mentioned, Jeffrey Yu and
Graham Clark, that you think are good?
JB: No, I like them. I'm very supportive of them. It's
just a personal thing where I have to learn that not
everybody's in it for the same reason. But my feeling
is that you're in it as just a hobby, you're kind of
in the way of the people that are meant to do it. The
people that do the same jokes night after night. You
kow what I mean? The person will do the same five
minutes because they want to be on stage. They're
making it look like that's what it is. They're
bringing the level down. People that will go and do
gigs for extremely cheap money are devaluing it.
They're doing bad work, and by doing bad work, they're
giving the whole artform a bad reputation.
GM: So you turn down gigs if the money isn't where it
should be.
JB: Yeah. I just turned down an $800 gig just a while
ago.
GM: That's not enough?!
JB: Not if it's in Saskatoon. A guy told me that in
San Francisco: You start getting what you deserve when
you start saying no. ... At a certain point, I'm going to
put the suit on, I'm going to do corporates, I'm going
to work harder at it, I'm going to promote better, and
I'm not going to take crap gigs. I've been doing this
for eight years. It's all fun and games for a while,
and you're like, okay, this is just a reason for me to
go out and drink and smoke. But you gotta really kind
of work at a certain point. It's all kind of part and
parcel of how I'm feeling now and wanting to get
married and stuff.
GM: Is that on the horizon?
JB: Hopefully. If my girlfriend wises up.
GM: Little Johnny's all growed up.