Ben Roy is shredding narratives. And while the Denver comic is bending-over our precious shared myths and fingering all the holes in our half-assed theories, the most profound issue may be that he is flipping-over the bodies of belief in his own life. For if we are anything we are built of stories more than we are composed of atoms or anything otherwise. Comedy is about a myriad of things. It’s about humor. It’s about story. It’s about ideas and wordplay and reading an audience. And while one can’t superimpose the necessary qualities of what it means to be a comic onto an template for greatness, for Ben Roy being a comic has been about working through his humanity. Watch him on-stage and the possibility of growth and destruction always appears to be at his throat. But look further and Roy’s mad pace before an audience begins to feels like his work is about something deeper, darker: it’s about evolving and, the inner world – his and ours. Anxious and jittery, in a constant state of unease, Roy’s presence on stage is an honest one. Having ceased drinking alcohol awhile back, Roy has had to face an inner world full of demons. In a methodology that runs contrary to much of what any other form of humanoid is capable of, especially in a time of bizarre self-mutilation – Roy doesn’t hide behind doors. No, he performs much of his own confrontational psychotherapy in front of packed comedy clubs. His affliction for panic attacks, once masked by his consumption of spirits is now laid bare. Naked in so many ways Roy is on the stage that a modicum of admiration would be neglected if not lauded upon this comic. Roy is not a joke teller. If anything, he likes to explain himself (because yes, there are some explanations necessary even though he shares nearly every dirty detail about his life) by saying that he has always been interested only in entertaining people, not in being funny. Humor simply happens to be the curtain that he has pulled down to use as his fabric – the material he has chosen to weave his yarn through. Roy was educated and subsequently worked in, theatre – that was where he began, in his adolescence. He has played in a variety of hardcore bands respectively and, for a long time, that was his drive – that was all he wanted to do. Then Ben Roy met his wife back home, in Maine. The two drove back out to Denver probably only on account of Roy’s fondness for the place that he had followed his last band to. The couple stayed. She began working at Comedy Works. Ben made drinking friends with some of the comics. He was coaxed into trying a new talent night and so he came-up with three minutes of material. His first time on stage and he almost won – he took second while Josh Blue took first. And so he took steps forward and began creating more material. Success found him quickly, but then the inevitable bombs began dropping and he was forced to learn how to cut his teeth on-stage, like all the other comics in the world. That was eight years ago. When I first met Ben Roy, he was an angry man on stage. He was combative with the audience. One night when there was barely a crowd at a poorly booked show, Roy dropped the microphone, left the stage and sat down at a party’s table. He just laid into them, ranting and raving. Really, it was a quite brilliant move – what else do you do when nobody is listening? Answer: yell. If they still aren’t listening? Answer: yell into their eyes. But, it’s at this point that I’m sure Roy would stop this whole conversation. He would tell us that being sober: sucks. All that’s really happened is that he’s taken off his “liquid ear muffs” and now: his demons are even louder than they were before. No, he’s not enlightened, he’ll assure you. But yes, being uncomfortable is, well… comforting. Ben Roy thrives on his discomfort and this is why he probably loves being on stage. In all of the great comics, it’s their character that lures you toward them, across the bar – for the first eye-fucking and flirtation. Their wordplay is the hand that starts caressing the back of your intellectual head, pulling it slowly toward their open crotch as they tickle the cunning linguist in you. Then, it’s their sense of story and punchline that finally moves you to beautiful, waxy orgasms from your way-belows, that unnamable place somewhere between your asshole and your soul. Ben Roy’s work is no different: it resides somewhere in these satisfying and perverse executions. Roy is fucking funny. But he is not jokey. His bits are hilarious, but they are also impactful and wildly philosophical. They are thoughtful. Revealing. Intense. Vulnerable. His bits all center around his life – what he has seen, heard and felt. He drags his wife and their son into the fold. And if the situations weren’t completely true in their telling, they are full of truths that Roy has carefully culled from the experience of his life. In a very real way Roy walks his stages with his black jeans down around his knees, his arms out to the sides and waving sarcastically. At all times he is embedding an oddly comfortable but yet shocking “yup, this is me, fuckers” in his bits. And sometimes I think the audience laughs out of discomfort just as much as they laugh from having their funny bone smashed (see Roy’s bit on his album, entitled, “My Sexual Gift”). This is an exciting time for Roy. He has appeared alongside some of the most notable contemporary comics like Patton Oswalt and Maria Bamford, to name a few. He has performed at some of the largest comedy festivals like The Just for Laughs Montreal Comedy Festival, as well as the Boston Comedy Festival, the MTV Comedy Showcase and The Aspen Rooftop Comedy Festival. Roy also has appeared on television, including a great set on Nickelodeon’s Mom at Nite – his set was worth mention, if nothing else, because of the comic’s ability to tone-down his filth factor and adapt his work for a slightly more mainstream audience. Another exciting development for Roy has been the fact that the gang formerly known as Los Comicos Super Hilariosos (along with Adam Cayton-Holland and Andrew Overdahl) has rebanded to form another great monthly comedy event, The Grawlix (www.fiveunicorns.com/grawlix). You can view the wonderfully produced Grawlix episodes, here: www.funnyordie.com/thegrawlix. Sizable developments are in the works for the trio's future – and that future appears to be quite bright. Over the last handful of years, Denver’s comedy scene has blossomed. It has been said that both the music and art scene could take a cue from the kind of community that has formed within and around the local comics. Comics like Ben Kronberg have moved away from the Queen City to pursue work on the West Coast, but it’s people like Roy, Cayton-Holland, Baumauer and Orvedahl who have remained – poised and confident, true believers in the local scene; in the city as a whole. And it shows. The Grawlix monthlies are typically at capacity. Roy’s album release was sold-out, packed to the gills with new faces as well as a huge host of local comedians – in total support. Nearly every night in town there’s an open mic, or a show. Events hosted by troupes like the Fine Gentlemen’s Club and Ladyface alongside new venues like Voodoo and clubs on the skirts of town like Wits End fill-in the gaps where the Comedy Works plays to more of the national acts. The community for comics and for the public to see comedy in Denver is as strong as it has ever been. This is on account of people like Greg Baumauer and his long-running open mic at the Squire that are mentoring the new comics, pushing them, opening for them. This is all done in the organic tradition of supporting local artisans – just like folks like Chuck Roy and Troy Baxley did for some of the comics that came-up and cut their teeth with Ben Roy and Cayton-Holland and Orvedahl. In the last couple of years, a whole new crop has even been cultivated in the soil. New names, new faces, new acts and energy have all been injected in the scene. Truly, in so many ways this is an exciting time to be in Denver and comedy provides a lens on why that is truth. For any wo/man to fight for their evolution, to stay in that boxing pocket and to be unabashedly themselves in all situations is virtuous. To do that on stage and to battle through your vices and infirmities is another thing. But the perfect blend of confidence and humility breeds this kind of creature, through toil, through adversity. And when I think of the valor in standing on a stage by one’s self, picking apart paradigms and pop culture at-large – and the balls it takes to do this with impactful, and ultimately humorous, precision – I think of the litany of people I admire and what their analogous stage was. I think of those people’s wars and how they took all the battles in the world around them and turned them into a mirror that shown back on their own dilapidated self. And I think of what it took for them to triumph. Ben Roy has balls. Two of them, is what I hear. But, when he’s on stage, I also hear: they’re fucking huge. Keep up with Ben and The Grawlix gang’s upcoming shows, events and progress, here: www.benroyyellsalot.com |
