By GABRIELLE MARTIN, Staff Reporter.
If you’re into jokes about sex, masturbation, sex, how you like your women, sex, periods, and … oh wait… more sex, then comedy night at White’s Bar is the place for you to be. If you like your jokes served up with a heaping portion of swearing, that’s even better!
James Stephens, Marco Verdoni and Drew Campbell have started a group called “Tri-City Comedy” that performs Thursday nights at 8 p.m. at White’s Bar in Saginaw. The group is also working on starting a comedy night at Bemo’s in Bay City.
“It brings something new to do,” says Stephens. He goes on to talk about the great music venue that Saginaw has to offer but explains that Saginaw hasn’t had a comedy group in quite some time. Stephens has loved comedy since he was a child, when he would watch comedians such as Steve Martin on Comedy Central.
19-year-old Drew Campbell was the host of comedy night on March 19, when around 20 comedians, some coming from as far away as Kalamazoo for their three minutes in the spotlight, entertained a full-house at White’s.
“Thursday nights have definitely increased since we started comedy,” says Allysha Guldenzoph, bartender and manager of White’s. “It’s nice [for people] to have something different to do during the week.”
One thing’s for sure, people do seem to enjoy having something different to do! Nearly every seat was taken at White’s and people lined the walls in the back to hear and see local comedians perform. Stephens says all of the performers are relatively new to stand-up comedy as they all have under six years of experience.
Now, I do have to give kudos to all of the comics because they got up on a stage and put themselves on the line, which is something that a lot of people don’t have the guts to do. As with all types of entertainment though, some people are better at it than others. There were a few jokes that, I’m going to be honest here, were painful to listen to. That’s one reason why I think it’s great that Tri-City Comedy has a taken up residence at White’s and is looking to expand to Bemo’s – the more practice these comedians can get, the better they will get I hope.
Really, if I hear one more joke about how you like your women or get asked, “How’s everybody doin’ tonight?” one more time, I may just go crazy. I would also like to offer this advice to the performers: your jokes are not made funnier by swearing. I understand that a swear word can add humor to a joke and I’m cool with that. What doesn’t add humor is when I miss the punchline of your joke because you dropped so many F-bombs that I lost track of what your joke actually was about.
Aside from that though, Tri-City Comedy puts on a well-organized show that is giving local comics a platform to master their art. White’s Bar, while small, provides a great “small town” atmosphere that is very welcoming to all comics and audience members.