Get ready to laugh, Vancouver: "America's Funnyman" Neil Hamburger will be opening for Tom Green at the Vogue Theatre on June 24 as part of Global's Comedyfest. Hamburger was in town several weeks ago headlining Talent Time at the Biltmore Cabaret. Check out his high five with Hugh Phukovsky!
I recently had the distinct pleasure of chatting to Mr. Hamburger about the unfortunate reason behind his extended absence from Canada, hair products, the health benefits of canned fruit, how to woo the ladies and the best course of action Mel Gibson could take to deal with his current career crisis.
(And don't forget - Vancouver is Awesome is presenting the season opener of Paul Anthony's Talent Time at the Biltmore Cabaret tonight! Have you entered our giveaway to win tickets, an exclusive backstage experience and dinner from Budgie's Burritos? There's still time!)
"That's my life!"
Where are you right now?
Look outside your window. See the bushes? See that rustling in the bushes? That’s me!
I appreciate when a man is being honest with me.
I’ve been here for a couple of days...
That explains the sheen. It’s been 3 ½ years since you were last in Vancouver.
Very true. You’ve done your research.
Why so long between shows?
It’s a sad situation. We had a couple of weirdos that tried to attack me at one of the shows there … we had a customs officer who insisted on viewing footage of my show and offering two thumbs down short of criticism, which was very disheartening. When you’re trying to enter the country legally to perform legally with a permit and he insists on sitting there and picking your set apart at the border … telling me which jokes were no good, which jokes were good – there was not many of them. Telling me I needed to clean up my style. The guy actually said to me – this is a Canadian customs officer – he said that tuxedos are out and he asked me if I had thought of wearing an Ed Hardy shirt, as that would make me more likable to the crowd. And this is what I had to go through to get there last time. And so I said “Jeez, I am going to take a break from this.”
I don’t even know what to say.
I don’t even know if it was legal.
That doesn’t sound right. I’m almost ashamed to be Canadian.
I’ve always had a great time up there and I was very eager to get back, and I felt a sense of loss for not having been there for so long, but at the same time I was very apprehensive that something like that might happen again. Fortunately it did not and we went without incident. We’re already discussing future engagements. We had a great time up there.
Again, I don’t know what to say. Nickelback has no problem getting into the country, so you shouldn’t either.
Well that’s what one of these guys said. I had a joke about Nickelback , and the guy just shook his head back and forth and said, “Bad idea. Why would you put a joke in there about them? That’s not gonna appeal to anyone.” So I said, “But my audiences are different, they don’t like Nickelback for the most part.” He just shook his head. I was really worried I wasn’t going to get into the country. Finally he stamped my passport and when he did he said, “I wish you had a book so we could stamp our criticism of your show into it as well, because you’d get a zero out of ten.”
That is shocking. It’s like my tax dollars are being really mismanaged and wasted.
Well this customs officer – where’s his pedigree? How do we know he’s a legitimate critic? He didn’t seem like one to me. Some of his complaints were long-winded but they were inaccurate.
Tell me, who are your fans?
Well, they’re people that go to the Biltmore, clearly, because we had quite a crowd. But we do focus on all walks of life. Sometimes we get the elderly set, people in their 70s and 80s. We get a lot of rock and roll people who love the sound of the driving beat. It’s not my thing but they like it. We get some of the more independent rock music, which is a real bad type of music, they come out to my shows. We get some comedy fans, people who have seen me on television and have found out about me that way. And then we get people that are just complete alcoholics and go to the bar every night and happen to stumble in one. They’re the toughest people because they didn’t come to see me, they came to buy liquor.
Those people are actually all off-duty customs officers.
You’ve got a point.
Tell me something – it seems like whenever I watch American TV lately Canadians appear as the butt of the joke. What’s that about?
That’s just lazy writing on behalf of the writers. I guess if you make a joke about Canadians it’s going to get aired but if you make a joke about blacks, people lose their jobs. It used to be you could make jokes about the Polish, but then that became the wrong thing to do. I think if you made a joke about the Chinese you’d find yourself in a kettle of hot water. I think that Canadians have been a bit too good-natured about accepting these jokes and you need to form some sort of organization for a boycott against these networks and that would be the end of it. On the other hand, I do feel that these are just jokes, and that people making them don’t actually have any negative feelings about Canada. I think the people laughing don’t have any negative feelings about Canadians either, so it’s just sort of harmless. It’s like if somebody makes a joke about their mother-in-law, they don’t actually wish death upon the woman it’s just that everyone is going to laugh at a mother-in-law joke. I certainly would never make a joke about Canada and any of the wonderful towns that I perform in.
Also, you actually want to be able to make it into the country …
Well, that’s the thing: I didn’t have any jokes like that and they still almost didn’t let me in! Anyways, Canadians are in many ways similar culturally to the folks here. We all like to laugh at the same things, like people slipping on banana peels and we both like to eat low-quality fast food. In a sense, when you make jokes about the Canadians you are making a joke at yourself. Although I think in Canada they’re less likely to eat some of the garbage food that they eat down in America. Although when I come up here I see all these awful American chains and I think, “Why don’t you people take a stand and stomp these assholes out of Canada?”
You have the title of America’s Funnyman. How did you get the title?
We just checked to see with the US patent office to see if it had been taken, because it had not been taken it meant it was available so we took it. All the good ones had been taken up. I’m surprised this one was available. We grabbed it, we took it and it’s ours and no one can take it from us.
That’s a good way to get a title. If Canada was to have a funny man, who would it be? I know you’ve been on Tom Green’s show quite a bit …
That’s what you would call a leading question. Of course it would be Tom Green – a very, very funny man. Of course, there’s so many other greats that have come up from Canada.
What hair products do you use and what is your beauty regimen?
We use something that is called New Wave Hard Rock gel. It comes from Australia, I have to bring it in. You can get a good look from this stuff, and that is why I stick by it. It keeps you looking young, and that’s what it does for me. As for beauty regimen, I try to eat right. Mostly canned fruit and I stay away from the fast foods. If you eat a couple buckets of Kentucky Friend Chicken your skin looks like Kentucky Friend Chicken, you know what I’m saying? We get a case of canned fruit cocktail at the beginning of each car and I keep that on the passenger seat, then through the course of the day just crack one of these things open … little cubes of peaches and pears and apple and a little maraschino cherry never hurt anyone … it’s a source of iron. If you eat that way you’re gonna live forever.
Nothing’s healthier for you than canned fruit that’s been soaked in a sugar syrup.
It’s hard to get fresh fruit when you’re driving 700 miles a day. If I passed a cherry tree I might stop and steal some cherries off of it. Honestly, I don’t pass cherry trees very often so I eat the canned version. I think all the nutrients are there. In some cases they’re concentrated by being in a can for a year. A lot of the iron and magnesium breeds with itself so it multiplies in quantity. So a cherry that used to be a little healthy for you, when it’s been in a can for a year, becomes a lot healthier for you. That’s how it works.
I’m totally going to go out and buy some canned cherries. Are you single?
Well, I am, yes. That’s definitely a sad situation.
When was your last date?
It wasn’t recent, I can tell you that.
What is the best way to woo a lady?
They don’t like loud music, I can tell you that. The best way is to go to a comedy club that Neil Hamburger is playing at. Another good way to woo them is to spend money on the merchandise after the show.
Women do love merchandise.
We had a guy that spent $100 on my trinkets and CDs and things and DDV’s [sic] and buttons and dolls and now the couple is married. He gave the stuff to the girl as a gift. So, these things do happen.
You get heckled a lot. What is the best one you’ve ever heard? Do you encourage heckling?
Proceed with caution. Heckle at your own risk.
No, I don’t. The best one is the one you’ve never heard. I would never give these people credit. Why give these people space in the paper? They’re crazy! These people are real assholes, real vermin. Most of them aren’t even heckles at all, they’re just bellowing up like their hair is on fire. It’s just horrible.
Are women funny?
Well a lot of them are. Joan Rivers is very funny. Some of the people that work in truck stops are very funny. Ladies who are waitresses who serve the coffee are very funny. What isn’t funny is my ex-wife and her attorney who are always trying to squeeze more money out of me. There is nothing funny about that.
Mel Gibson – WTF?
Well, the man has made so many great movies over the years and I think what they need to do is get him to play this character in a movie. People are fascinated with these tapes. So you take the tapes and work them into an action film script and you’re doing big business.
That’s a very interesting solution to his current career crisis.
Well, you know, people love these villains in movies and so I’m saying just take this stuff and print it out. Put an explosion 45 minutes into it, maybe a guy hanging off the edge of a building by his fingertips an hour into it, put another explosion and a car chase after an hour and fifteen minutes, and then, you know … have him get killed in the end. By I don’t know who … Kevin Costner, maybe. Then you’ve got a movie. You don’t have to write any dialogue, it’s all there you just add those explosions and there’s a hit movie.
I think you’ve just described Lethal Weapon 4: The End of Riggs.
Exactly! You don’t even have to hire a screen writer, you can just use the existing material. It’s very economical. Then you kill him at the end and it’s very cathartic for the audience … you don’t have to listen to this bullshit that he’s spewing. Watching him get killed on screen will make everyone feel good – it’s the feel good movie of the year.
That’s pretty genius. Would this film be in 3D or 2D?
I think they all have to be 3D now.
Tell me – what does the rest of your day look like?
Not good. We’re on the road. We’ve got a show in Billings, Montana and we’re not even there yet. We gotta get there as quick as we can. We’re way behind schedule. It’s always like that. You’re always rushing and rushing and rushing and then you never make it in time and then the show gets canceled … it all spirals then it all goes down the drain. This is a bad business to be in.
I won’t ask you if you have any advice to struggling comedians.
Keep struggling. We don’t need the competition from successful ones, we need more people to quit. There’s already too many comedians as it is and we don’t want any more.
Is there anything that is sacred that you would not make a joke about onstage?
It depends on your crowd. If I was doing a corporate show for the folks that own the Best Western hotel chain, I wouldn’t make a lot of jokes about how the Best Western hotel chain is lousy. That wouldn’t make sense, would it? If I’m doing jokes for some of these drug addicts that come out to shows, I have to keep my jokes about druggies to a certain percentage. You know what I’m saying?
You tailor your jokes to your crowd.
Any good comedian does. You have to size up the crowd and see what it is they’re there for. It doesn’t usually work for me, I’m not so skilled at that. There is no topic I wouldn’t touch, let’s face it. This is a show and people are going to laugh their fool heads off so we’re going to do whatever it takes to get them to laugh their fool heads off. It doesn’t make any sense not to use every tool in your toolbox.
Have you ever encountered any of the people that you skewer? What would happen if you were ever under a bridge and Anthony Kiedis was there?
It’s funny you should say that – on Saturday night I was in Montréal doing a show and after the show a Dane Cook-looking guy came up to me and was telling me how much he loved the show. Well, it turned out it was Dane Cook. That was very odd. But he was very kind, very gentlemanly. It was very nice to meet him. It was too bad that he had been exposed to some of my jokes at his expense. But he was very gracious about it. I would like to think that that’s what the Red Hot Chili Peppers would do but probably not. I have three seconds of material on Dane Cook and in the case of the Red Hot Chili Peppers I have ten hours plus of jokes about those assholes.
And Michael Jackson fans?
Well, our material is a tribute to Michael Jackson. The only problem we would have is people saying, “Thank you for that loving tribute.” Michael Jackson is one of the greats … didn’t you notice, it’s a tribute?
Does tragedy plus time equal comedy?
No. No, I think alcohol plus problems, the pain in people’s lives equals comedy. That’s why we’re there, because these people have miserable, miserable lives and they’re trying to forget their problems for one night. They have a couple of drinks, they come out, and there you go – there’s the comedy. I think that’s the perfect setting for it.
Maybe that’s the best advice to give a struggling comic.
Don’t get advice to those guys! We want them to quit and go back to doing what they were doing; brain surgery or attorneys or …
… or customs officers.
