He’s Fittest in Survival of the Funniest

It is painful to watch Christopher Sylbert walk, because he doesn’t walk so much as struggle, inching along with the aid of a metal walker. He moves with a slow, halting rhythm, nudging the walker forward, then leaning against it, nudging and leaning, nudging and leaning.

We waited silently, patiently, expectantly. We didn’t know if he was crippled by accident or illness. Sylbert grimaced as he moved at his snail’s pace to the microphone.

His body is weak, but his voice is strong.

“Larry Parker got me $2.1 million!”

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Christopher Sylbert does stand-up--but just barely. The walk isn’t an act; the grimace might be. He nailed that first punch line, and from that point on, the only question was whether he could hold on to us, whether he could make us laugh harder and longer than Joel Lindley had.

Comedy is the survival of the funniest. This was the L.A. Cabaret’s 10th annual “Funniest Person in the Valley” contest. Of the nine previous winners at the Encino club, several are successful comics, but none are household names. Perhaps the best known is Tommy Davidson, who went on to become a regular on the TV show “In Living Color.”

On this night, the emcee joked that more people come to see the judges than the comics. Milton Berle, no less, sat in the second row, a few seats from Shirley Jones. Uncle Miltie and Mrs. Partridge! Why, it was an honor just to be there.

Could Sylbert top Lindley? A few comics struggled, but Lindley was on. One bit concerned his hatred of racism. He bragged about an encounter with a van loaded with skinheads. He took them on, one against six, and kicked their butts. It didn’t bother him much when he found out they were chemotherapy patients, because they were still skinheads. And he hates skinheads.

The civilities of everyday life do not apply in a comedy club. Cancer, murder, suicide--any uncomfortable subject can be a source of humor here. Sex, of course, is another staple. Much of what was said there cannot be said here.

When Sylbert hobbled to the stage and told a few jokes, I caught myself thinking that it didn’t seem fair. Would Sylbert be awarded sympathy points? Was Lindley handicapped?

The concern quickly passed, because Sylbert was on a roll. He has presence and he has polish. He is a 43-year-old man who wears his hair spiky and long and has the gaunt look of an aging Rolling Stone. His accent is a streetwise New York hybrid, so that “first” comes out “foist” and “that” comes out “dat.”

He told about his brief career as a gigolo: “Dat broad was so big she was protected by Greenpeace.”

Not once in his allotted seven minutes did Sylbert explain the source of his disability. Perhaps he’s discovered that it’s better for people to wonder. And he’s obviously discovered that his wit reaches beyond his own predicament to the predicaments we all share.

“Dis is a dumb state,” he observed. The audience was hanging on every word, every pause, every inflection. “They got no money for schoolteachers. They got no money for cops. But let ‘em find one Medfly--suddenly, they got nothin’ but money. They bust out helicopters, for crissakes, and they start spraying poison all over the place. And they tell you don’t worry about a thing. You and the kids will be just fine. . . . But cover your car.”

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Only later, when Christopher Sylbert was handed the $1,500 winner’s check, did he explain to the audience that he was found to have multiple sclerosis 15 years ago.

He didn’t talk about the fact that he’s an ex-heroin addict who has done prison time for burglary--a crime to support his habit. He didn’t explain how he polished his act “running my mouth” before drug rehab groups. All that he told me later.

But on stage, the tough-guy facade slipped and Sylbert soaked in the applause. Like an actor accepting the Oscar, he glowed and thanked his friends, including the late Chris Collins, a comic who had won this contest last year, when Sylbert was the runner-up.

Chances are you never heard of Collins. Sylbert says he was “brilliant.” He died earlier this year at age 44 of an aneurysm, leaving a wife and two children.

“It was like something popped in his brain and it was like goodby,” Sylbert recalled later. “He used to take me around with him when I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. . . . It just just broke my heart. But being disabled and having a progressive disease, I’m very aware of my mortality and everybody else’s. You know what? Tomorrow you could be hit by a car and be in the shape I’m in, and you have to live it one day at a time. . . .

“They call it a progressive disease,” Sylbert went on. “. . . I can wrestle with this. . . . I didn’t let it kick my butt. I didn’t quit. I’m still in the game.”