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Comedy Attic brings the laughs to Bloomington [Herald-Times, Bloomington, Ind. :: ](Herald-Times (Bloomington, IN) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) July 20--The Comedy Attic's green room is a sanctuary lined with bobbleheads and band posters, where club owner Jared Thompson sinks into his puffy black couch as the show unfolds. If the Cubs are playing, he might eyeball the big-screen TV. But from behind a kelly green wall, he still hears the jokes, still listens closely for a heckler who might sully the punchline. He's always conscious of what could go wrong. But so much is going right for his comedy club these days -- what could go wrong? Now, only 15 minutes to showtime, there might be something horribly, terribly wrong. Maria Bamford and her warm-up act, Jackie Kashian, are nowhere to be found. Thompson hears they walked into Restaurant Tallent only four minutes earlier, and he can only hope they're ordering takeout. The minutes tick toward 8 p.m. -- 7:49, :50, :51. Anxiety fills the room. Thompson palms his unshaven face, then he runs his fingers through his hair. He paces. He bites his phone. A lonely microphone stands onstage, and Brad Wilhelm, the emcee for the evening, hopes he doesn't have to stretch five opening minutes to a 40-minute set. There is no room for error in this business, little money to be made but plenty to lose. On a good day, Thompson won't let anyone else answer business calls out of fear they won't say the right thing -- whatever he would say. "I feel like people are so casual about everything they do, and we live on such a small margin," he says. "I can't be too casual when every decision is the difference between surviving or closing." Thompson has micromanaged survival. He books the acts. He answers every email. He picks comedians up at the airport. He guarantees them a show free of hecklers. That attention to detail has won praise. The Comedy Attic was on comedian Amy Schumer's list of the top 10 comedy clubs in the country in USA Today. Comics fit to perform in big-city theaters, for bigger slices of ticket revenue, have returned to Bloomington and its 164-seat venue, to be within feet of honest judges as they test new jokes. Bamford and Marc Maron, a legendary neurotic with the No. 1 comedy podcast, play only days apart in a city of 80,000 people. Bamford's Wednesday and Thursday shows are sold out. Fans wait, staring at the microphone, sipping bottles of beer and scooping popcorn from red-and-white striped containers. Thompson paces the green room, arms crossed, waiting for a reason to relax. Jared Thompson, owner of the Comedy Attic, holds the door open for a beer delivery as he holds his youngest child Margaret in Bloomington, Ind. Wednesday, July 2, 2014. Chris Howell -- Herald-Times Chris Howell If Thompson seems so on edge, it has something to do with what comedian Dana Gould once told Brad Wilhelm. "This club shouldn't exist." It's simple math. Most comedy clubs are located in cities 10 times Bloomington's size. There are only so many butts and so many lipstick-red seats for Thompson to put them in, and sought-after comedians aren't cheap. Notable comics such as Bamford, Maron, Jimmy Pardo, Hannibal Buress, Tig Notaro and Todd Glass step through the door, but Gould's point holds. If Thompson didn't control most things, if his wife didn't have a full-time job and he didn't babysit his 5-month-old daughter in the green room during the day, he wouldn't be able to pay top acts and make rent. The margins are small, and Gould's reality is often too close to being true. On Indiana University graduation weekend, his club lost money because of increased hotel rates in Bloomington. At the same time, the 37-year-old is father to a couple kids, two comedy festivals and a club. In the Limestone Comedy Festival's second year, Thompson booked Patton Oswalt, his "Babe Ruth of comedy," to headline the May event. He's already defied Wilhelm, who thought Thompson was crazy when he opened the club in 2008. "Nothing would shock me at this point," says Wilhelm, who has been hosting comedy shows in Bloomington for two decades, starting at Bear's Place in the '90s. He imagines one day introducing Louis C.K., the undisputed top stand-up in the world, to the stage "Don Rickles and Bill Cosby could come here and do 'The Odd Couple' -- that would be weird, but it doesn't seem like it's out of the realm of possibility." There are reasons for the club's success in its less than six years of doing business. The crowds are smart and can follow a joke from setup to punchline. That makes work easy for a good comic. The room is intimate and the brick backdrop of the stage always seems within reach. All good for the fan experience. But there are so many more reasons why the Comedy Attic should cease to exist, especially when more clubs have closed in the last two decades than remain open. Especially when Comedy Central, Netflix and YouTube have given people reasons to stay home. Thompson's face fills with frustration when he talks business. That's partly his manner of speaking. Just ask him what he thinks of people who sniff their wine. But the direction of live comedy is a tangible threat. Clubs straddle a line between drink sales and comedy. Pushing drinks too hard can leave a comedian battling a drunken mess. All too often, drinks and profits are still the focus. Desperate clubs have used "cold call" marketing. They offer free tickets, called "papering" a show, to fill a club with willing drinkers. Such patrons tend not be invested in comedy. They heckle or talk at their table, two things that elevate Thompson's blood pressure. "With the audiences we have built here," Thompson says, "it's almost a turd-proof show for a headliner." Two weeks before the Bamford show, Thompson waits in the green room with his acts for the night, Dan St. Germain and Taylor Ketchum. A Guy Noir bobblehead sneakily listens in from a shelf as he bemoans missed opportunities. Timing is everything. Michael Che, a fake news correspondent for Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show," was on Thompson's radar but he didn't book him. Now he's too busy. Jerrod Carmichael is coming to the club in August, but Thompson saw him in the Seth Rogan comedy "Neighbors." He fears the comic might end up an actor rather than touring clubs like his. He can't get John Mulaney, either, a 32-year-old comedian slated to have his own show on Fox this fall. "I can't get him, because comedy clubs are seen as terrible places." Ketchum has worked his share of New York bars, sometimes in front of 10 people with a television behind him. This place is different. "You care about comedy," he says. "Most clubs are just trying to sell drinks." "How can I stand up for my brothers and sisters if they are terrible?" Thompson groans. "I can't act like Jerry Maguire if nobody is coming with me." Jared Thompson plays a pre taped video letting audience members know about the "rules" of the club including heckling and talking during the shows. Here he paces behind the curtain at the side of the stage while it plays. He is the owner of the Comedy Attic in Bloomington, Ind. Chris Howell -- Herald-Times When Thompson checks his cell phone, it's 7:12 p.m. Too late for only a dozen people to be seated for an 8 p.m. Friday show. He's nervous, because the doors open early for one reason -- so talkers can sit and talk themselves out before a show starts. "This isn't good." The Comedy Attic's formula only works because Thompson is as anal about work as he is about which uniform to wear as he watches a game in the green room. If the Chicago Blackhawks are home, he wears red. Away, white. Playoffs, the sweater with the Stanley Cup Playoffs patch. Everything at the club is choreographed, personally. Phone calls are pouring in before St. Germain's show, and he can't finish a sentence without punching a button on his cordless telephone and answering, "the Comedy Attic ..." One frequent customer, an IU grad student Thompson knows will be moving away soon, wants to switch her Thursday ticket to a Saturday: "You are going to be with all the yuppies. You are going from a built-in comedy crowd to date night!" One call has Thompson rolling his eyes. It's a woman asking about Wilhelm's schedule: "Brad is a host. He'll be here next Thursday. Tonight we have Dan St. Germain, he's a headliner." St. Germain, to some people, is lesser-known than the self-described "Bloomington treasure" Wilhelm. He's been to Bloomington three times, but St. Germain doesn't sell a lot of tickets. Part of his pay will be subsidized by Wednesday's open mic night, when amateurs pay the club to tell jokes onstage. Part of his audience will get in with free passes, which they received for buying tickets to a more high-profile show. Still, the Comedy Attic's reputation rests with St. Germain, a 30-year-old native of Evansville who has conquered the crowded New York comedy scene and is moving to L.A. The club books about a dozen performers a year who can sell out a show, but the lineup is held together by 35 of the funniest people Thompson can find and afford. People such as St. Germain. For two months, prior to every show, Thompson played St. Germain's clip on the video projector, giving people a chance to decide if they want to see him live. His set is more vulgar than most, but he meets Thompson's criteria. He had his own special on Comedy Central. He appeared on Conan O'Brien. "If they've made it past those tastemakers of comedy," Thompson says, "I know they'll be good when they get here." Thompson is very particular. There were only two months in the club's history Thompson didn't book the acts. The Comedy Attic started as a Funny Bone franchise in '08, a period that included the tailspin of Dustin "Screech" Diamond's career, the very kind of over-the-hill "celebrity booking" Thompson despises. Early on, Thompson got an email from someone at the franchise asking him to book a comedian whose closing act was stripping down to a British flag bikini and launching into an Austin Powers impression. At one time in Bloomington, that might have sufficed. When Bear's Place held national regard for its comedy shows in the bar's backroom, top road comics from the Midwest were featured. But Thompson shudders as he pictures the balance of their lineup -- the kind of cheap acts that drove people away from live comedy in the 1990s, when there were too many venues and not enough acts to fill them all. The bikini was a turning point. "I realized, at that point, they didn't understand Bloomington, and rightfully so," he says. "Bear's Place, for 25 years, thrived on hokey road comics, magicians and jugglers ... and it worked. It just wasn't something we wanted our name attached to." The club rebranded in 2010 with the mission of bringing ascending comics to America's flyover zone. St. Germain, a bushy-bearded man in a plaid shirt, hollers as if he's voicing over a Monster Truck commercial. He jokes about his Lexapro-pro-pro and the health risks of imaginary "ding danches" -- ding dongs filled with ranch dressing -- which he predicts will one day surge Americans past Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes and into diabetes 2.5. After his first set, St. Germain does what comedians do in the green room. They plop down on an easy chair beside Thompson's couch and talk movies. The conversation then shifts to comedy, because a club just opened in Evansville. "They booked a hypnotist ..." Thompson says. "Killed!" answers St. Germain, who has been on the road for years now but still lists his hometown as one of the top 10 worst places he's ever been. "I don't blame them," Thompson says. "They book what their city wants." Jared Thompson stops putting away supplies long enough to answer the phone which turned out to be a call concerning an upcoming show at the Comedy Attic in Bloomington, Ind. Wednesday, July 2, 2014. Chris Howell -- Herald-Times Bamford night is the closest Thompson will come to perfection. She is a star. Her featured act, Jackie Kashian, is headliner material. But first, she has to show up. A few days earlier, another comedy icon came to Bloomington. For Marc Maron, there was a line bending around the corner of Fourth and Walnut streets. The comedian's cult followers brought him gifts, including a sandwich from Bloomingfoods and a copy of the Afghan Whigs new album. "The most Jerrod Carmichael would get is a bag of weed," Thompson says. "This is a weird town," Maron said during one of his sets. "You have no idea if someone is homeless or John Mellencamp." "I'm a godless Jew with tingling fingers," Maron continued. He hunched over a plastic stool as he recalled the day he convinced himself he had a brain tumor and snapped at a radiologist. "I'm an angry person. All I can do is close the gap between outburst and apology." Comedy Attic After the show, Maron stood outside and greeted all his fans, accepting tight hugs from people who love his plaid shirts and therapy-session performances. Maron first appeared at the Comedy Attic in 2010, a struggling comedian who just needed a chance. Now, everyone wants his act. He has a show on the cable channel IFC. Thompson has to be prepared for the reality that Maron could one day pass on the 4 a.m. plane ride from L.A. to Indy. But through the years, he has at least earned Maron's respect. The same Maron who cursed at Thompson in 2012 because there wasn't a mirror in the green room sent an email to his fans after his June appearance here. He told anyone in Indianapolis to drive an hour south, because Thompson's club was better than anything they'd find in the metropolis. He painted Thompson as "on top of (stuff), almost a little too on top of it, but that's his charm." Maria Bamford performs at the Comedy Attic in Bloomington, Ind. Wednesday, July 2, 2014. Chris Howell -- Herald-Times The "Maron Mirror" remains hung up on his kelly green wall. It replaces a show poster of Bamford, now tucked away behind a coat rack. Thompson is worried to put it back. "I don't want Maria to think I'm a stalker," he says. After the Tallent scare, Bamford shows up, sporting fresh temporary tattoos of a lobster and a jelly fish on her forearms. Kashian arrives backstage a couple minutes later with a white bag, takeout. A $22 salad. Thompson begins his routine. He gets Bamford a glass of soda, then paces behind a curtain as a video tells would-be hecklers to leave. He grabs the microphone just outside the green room, never visible to the crowd, his feet marching in place with nervous energy. "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Comedy Attic, you ready to have a good time tonight?" The crowd roars. Kashian is called to the stage. "Twenty-two dollars and it's the size of my hand," she says of her salad. "They didn't even cut it." While Kashian works the crowd, Bamford stands outside the green room and reads a crumbled piece of white paper from under a lamp. Her stream of consciousness style could be deceiving if someone thought it wasn't planned. Thompson knows. Bamford prepares more than anyone. Her persona onstage, soft and sweet, yet moody and passive-aggressive, can take off like an airplane, a throaty, rumbling groan becoming the shrill outbursts of a cartoon maniac. She begins her set with a sigh. "I'm 43 years old and I've never been in a relationship longer than year. It's officially ... my fault." "I was so sick of asking that question of people in relationships," morphing her voice into a trembling dope. "How did you guys meet? Did your hands come together by accident in a garden?" She snaps back into a ditz, twiddling her hair. "We met, we just like each other and, like, we still like each other, and we have some doubts, but we still like each other." Bamford's monologue continues to seep through the walls. It relaxes Thompson. Like the Beatles, he says. They could have played classical, but they chose rock. Bamford could play the cool, confident comedian, but she chooses quirky instead. He wonders if the audience truly appreciates what they are hearing, if it is something like hearing Miles Davis trumpet for the first time. He misses every facial contortion and blank stare as a comedy master works her audience, but he hears laughter and allows a smirk. During the act, Thompson sits with Kashian in the green room and scoops jambalaya from a plastic container. Then, as Bamford pauses between jokes, there is a single "woo" from the crowd. His spoon freezes above the soup. "Yuck," he blurts out. It wasn't the last bite that offended his senses. "Woo?" Audience members enjoy headliner Maria Bamford as she performs at of the Comedy Attic in Bloomington, Ind. Wednesday, July 2, 2014. Chris Howell -- Herald-Times ___ (c)2014 Herald-Times (Bloomington, Ind.) Visit the Herald-Times (Bloomington, Ind.) at www.heraldtimesonline.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |