No Joking Matter

The comedians stand in line, hot and sweaty and wait-weary under a noon-hour sun, asking what is, at least for the moment, a very unfunny question: “Where the hell is Scruncho?”

Heads turn. “He’s back in that old Pontiac, asleep,” somebody offers.

“No, he ain’t. I looked.”

“Hey, isn’t he the guy who opened for Julio Iglesias?”

“That’s real nice. But I ain’t seen Scruncho in, like, five hours. If he’s not back in five minutes, he’s a goner.”

Welcome to comic hell--the sometimes ill-humored waiting line for the weekly open mike at Hollywood’s Laugh Factory, the place where unknown and untested comedians pay their dues for a three-minute shot at stardom onstage.

These “open-mikers” line up each Tuesday along Sunset Boulevard, often gathering hours before dawn, waiting 12 hours or more to learn their fate. Only the first 20 take the stage, so getting a place in line and keeping it over the long, drawn-out, car-horn-blaring day becomes a brutal ritual.

Take the curbside jester who pulled a trick even worse than Scruncho’s disappearing act, one that turned the place into a comedy of errors. Arriving late one day after some other performers had momentarily stepped away, the joker ripped up the impromptu waiting list kept by the comics and stole a place in line.

“That dude was toast,” recalls Orlando Ashley, a 30-year-old aspiring comic, who is 15th in line Tuesday morning. “He had to fight five guys when they came back. Don’t let them fool you, comedians can get real mean.”

They’ve all been there--from a handful of now-known comics to some never-had-it, never-wills. The veterans, many of whom have come here for years, have got the waiting down to a science, hauling along the beds and air mattresses, portable sleeper sofas, even leather BarcaLoungers.

These old-time open-mikers also know a little secret: Unlike most other lines, nobody wants to be first here; you don’t want to take the stage when audience members are still taking their seats, scraping their chairs along the floor and giving their drink orders.

“Going first is death,” says 33-year-old comic Naja Divi. “Because nobody’s drunk yet.”

Laugh Factory founder Jamie Masada admires the comics’ dedication.

“I mean, how do you even have the energy to be funny after waiting in line all day? But all these comedians are wonderful people. They just need a break, is all.”

Their goal is to work their way up from a three-minute stint to a 15-minute showcase spot where they’re actually paid to tell jokes and don’t have to wait in line anymore.

In a showcase gig, you can pace your act, show the audience a real comic persona, develop a following. But in three minutes, a novice comic is lucky enough to get a few hesitant laughs before the hook comes. Still, week in and week out, the 20 spots at the Laugh Factory fill up fast.

“Most people driving by think we’re waiting for concert tickets,” says Divi, who waits tables when he’s not telling jokes. “They shout out, ‘Who’s playing tonight?’ And we yell back, ‘We are!’ ”

After a while, the long wait to perform ceases to be funny.

“I keep coming back because I’m a loser,” quips 34-year-old Bruce Jay, a daytime security guard and an Iowa native. “But then you see things happen for other people. They get an agent and land spots on television shows. It gives you inspiration to keep coming back.”

Kelly Kursten is one comic who finally made it out of The Line: Two weeks ago, she was hired as a full-time comedian by the Laugh Factory, and Masada became her agent.

But not before she spent a year and a half in The Line, like the others always on the lookout for parking tickets, enduring the indignity of jaywalking citations and the sting of an afternoon rain with no place to hide.

“I read many a novel and witnessed many a fistfight over the list while waiting in that line,” she says. “Once I had my name crossed off the list by a boyfriend at the time who replaced it with the name of a woman he was sleeping with. The jerk. No, I don’t miss that line one bit.”

*

Comics can only return once every three weeks, so each line has its own character, its own group of jokesters. For better or worse, many perfect their material while they wait.

Like the line from Jay: “Hi, my name’s Bruce. I’m from Iowa. Sometimes I get cold. Maybe I should step away from my neighbor’s window and put my clothes back on.”

Most veteran open-mikers eventually get to know one another and will offer tips on each other’s delivery.

“Bruce here was the one who told Tim Allen to do the tool thing,” quips Ashley. “He also convinced Andrew Dice Clay that maybe he should try a few dirty nursery rhymes.”

At this level, the jokes are more often misses than hits. Says 22-year-old comic Dave Estes: “I once had a line in my routine about how my father and I used to go fishing on Lake Salmonella. Nobody got it. I finally had to kiss it goodbye.”

At the end of each performance, comics receive pointers from club owner Masada, a former comedian who has known “the abject terror of standing in front of 100 people who have paid $10 apiece for you to make them laugh.”

He’s helped young comedians like Fila Rey, a 29-year-old Los Angeles native who was severely burned in a car accident when hit by a drunk driver several years ago.

Instead of ignoring his condition while onstage, Rey uses his pain to bring laughter. Sometimes it’s a hard sell, but he is determined to make it as a comic.

Says Rey: “I use my comedy to help me heal.”

He glances at his watch: just six more hours to go.

“Now, if I can only get through The Line,” he says. “Just one more time, baby. One more time.”