[November 05, 2009]

Southern-fried humor makes appearance at Fritz: ?Chicks' present Comedy Tour

Nov 05, 2009 (Grand Forks Herald - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- The women of the Southern Fried Chicks Comedy Tour, coming Sunday to UND Chester Fritz Auditorium, like to call themselves the original "Desperate Housewives." That is -- according to the Chicks' kerchief-wearing star Etta May -- if actresses like Teri Hatcher, Marcia Cross and Eva Longoria, who play "Desperate Housewives" on TV, actually looked anything like real housewives.

"The 'Desperate Housewives' on TV, there hasn't been as good-looking a neighborhood as that, ever," Etta May said in an interview with the Herald. "That's a collection of beautiful women. We (the Chicks) are real. Maybe we should be the real desperate housewives. Because I've got the 20-pound spread and cellulite that starts at my knees." Etta May, along with Sonya White and Karen Mills, will bring their Southern-fried humor to the Fritz at 7:30 p.m. Sunday. Tickets, available at the Chester Fritz box office, any Ticketmaster outlet or by calling (800) 745-3000, range in price from $10 to $24.

The Southern Fried Chicks Comedy Tour starring Etta May has become the top-grossing all-female comedy tour on the road today thanks to the Chicks' hilarious take on life, love and the pursuit of happiness. They promise an evening of clean, clever storytelling for every generation.

The women often are compared with the all-male Blue Collar Comedy Tour that features Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall, Ron White and Larry the Cable Guy, the latter who performed last month at the Alerus Center.

The Southern Fried Chicks press kit says: "Think Blue Collar Comedy Tour with better hair and bigger attitude." Or, as Etta May put it, the Blue Collar Comedy Tour with PMS.

"I'll tell you what Foxworthy and those guys did for Southern comedians," Etta May said. "They kind of broke the door open. I started in comedy in Los Angeles, and the people were going, 'You're not edgy enough' and 'You're not this' and 'You're not that.' 'You're hokey.'" Most television sitcoms center on urban men. The people in L.A. and New York seem to believe there's an ocean between the two coasts, she said.

"Thank God there are guys like Foxworthy because they show (Southern) comedians can make money and that there are rednecks everywhere. The industry cannot understand why Larry the Cable Guy can pack stadiums in Pennsylvania." But back to the housewives. Etta May sounds more than a little riled when she talks about those TV "housewives," including "The Real Housewives of Orange County," and their Atlanta, New York and New Jersey counterparts.

"I think it says more about men that it does about women," She said. "Who are these men and why are they following these bimbos?" As a character, Etta May bears at least some resemblance (she's not divulging exactly how much) to her real-life self. According to her press kit, Etta May was born and raised in Bald Knob, Ark., and met her husband, an aspiring truck driver, at a friend's kegger. (She is in fact married, and her husband plans to accompany her to Grand Forks so he can go deer hunting.) She likes to say her comedy routine is based on waiting for her husband and kids to do something dumb and then telling people about it.

"Here's what pisses me off," she said. "How a man can do one thing and they can't do another. My husband can sit in a field in the middle of Minnesota freezing his ass off deer hunting but the same man can't sit in a mall and watch my purse for an hour." Southern comics are storytellers more than joke tellers, she said. That comes from a culture in which people went visiting after Sunday church, then sat out on the porch while everyone told stories about each other, she said.

The character of plain-spoken, plain-dressing country woman Etta May is a combination of "everybody I grew up with," she said. With the down economy, audiences need to laugh, and a show like the Southern Fried Chicks can help people forget their worries for a while, she said.

Men like the show, too, she said, but maybe for a more specific reason.

"Afterward, they look at their wife and say, 'You may not be Angelina Jolie, but at least you're not Etta May.'" To see more of the Grand Forks Herald, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.grandforks.com. Copyright (c) 2009, Grand Forks Herald, N.D.

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