By GREG DIXON
American comedian Greg Proops sags back into a booth in the bar of his Auckland hotel, attempts a crumpled smile and considers what it means to change time zones.
"It's kind of like being on drugs without the pesky high. I'm sort of confused and disoriented."
He looks buggered. He
sounds buggered. And since landing on what he calls "this island, this archipelago, this series of islands" after a flight from LA 24 hours before, he's been the hardest working stiff in these here parts.
Straight off the plane, the New Zealand International Comedy Festival had him sweating for his pay cheque. Within hours of arriving, the Holmes show took him to the ghastly St Lukes mall for an interview - no, he couldn't understand why either - and today, the following morning, he's done three radio shows. Later, much later, he'll also show up on a particularly mad episode of Sportscafe and turn it on for the cameras. But right now it's me, and the jetlag seems to be winning.
He orders a cappuccino and I a flat white - what's that? he asks, less froth I tell him - and confesses he doesn't do succinct answers. What he does do is talk very, very fast about a career we have hardly seen.
On this island, this archipelago, this series of islands, he's been seen regularly on the American and British versions of the improv, theatre-sports show, Whose Line Is It Anyway? You might have sighted him too - he looks like a slightly hip accountant and sounds like he's talking with lungs full of helium - on US sitcoms Just Shoot Me and The Drew Carey Show.
But these are just a few of his gigs. The 44-year-old has a list of television and film credits (including voicing an animated character in Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace) as long as his 1.8m frame. And he's taken his stand-up comedy act all over the world and it's this, the live Proops, that he likes best.
"On television, you can't swear, you can't say anything pertinent or the truth or anything like that. Live I'm going to be more myself, or a stage version of myself, and there is no one there to edit it. It's much more immediate and interactive with the crowd. It's more fun. I love it. I have no patience and it's instant gratification."
Or death. The thing most of us have a hard time understanding is why anyone would risk a life telling jokes on stage. When it goes wrong it appears the worst job in the world. But Proops is philosophical about it going pear-shaped on stage.
"First of all if it's really going badly I'll tell the audience, I'll acknowledge it. Then they're a little more at ease, they know I'm not in denial, that I think I'm killing.
"It's the part that seems to panic everybody, the failure aspect of it, but stand-ups don't really dwell on it. When you first start, you're terrible and no one likes [you]. After that it's all take."
A San Francisco liberal now based in LA, he's also more political live he says, though his material is not necessarily about politics.
"I'm a super-lefty. So even when I'm talking about anything else it's going to bleed through. My job is to make people laugh but I also don't want everyone to think what they believe is right, though I don't have the answer or any solutions.
"I believe that disagreeing with what someone says on stage but still getting the joke is the highest calling. In other words, if you come into a crowd of people who are supposed to love you and play to them, that's okay. But it's not as much fun as [expletive] with them a little bit."
Bagging President Bush certainly qualifies for that in the States and he's taken flak from conservatives for targeting Dubya, which he finds rather strange.
"I was in Chicago a month ago playing in the suburbs and someone [who was there] posted on my website that they didn't like the show because I made fun of the President. I thought well that's missing the point of comedy entirely, isn't it?
"Now mind you, my viewpoint is completely poisoned. But I also don't believe in being fair and balanced and airing both sides. That's not my job.
"I heard so much about Monica Lewinsky and Whitewater [during the Clinton presidency] that I thought my eyeballs were going to swim in bullshit. My feeling is that this presidency can take a few jibes from a stand-up comedian with no power to change things and you have to sit there and take it. A lot of people disagree with it and I'm 'like, whatever. Go where you feel comfortable, I'm not here to reinforce the Fox News viewpoint of the universe'."
Anti-Bush sentiments aren't likely to raise hackles here, but he's already been ragged about his material before he steps on stage.
A teenage girl, not the one from Whale Rider he assures me, posted a note on his website telling him we'd heard all the jokes about hobbits, fush and chups and sheep there were, so don't bother.
"I thought 'shit, there goes my act ... hey which way is Mordor?' I'm sure they'll still laugh at it. I have the advantage of being an Auslander [outsider], so they'll cut me more slack than a Kiwi comic. I'm from America, I'm supposed to be stupid."
Performance
* Who: Greg Proops
* What: International Comedy Festival
* Where and when: Comedy Gala, St James tonight; solo show St James tomorrow night and Sky City Sunday.
Herald feature: NZ International Comedy Festival
Festival website
Festival programme
Buy tickets from Ticketek
Venues
By GREG DIXON
American comedian Greg Proops sags back into a booth in the bar of his Auckland hotel, attempts a crumpled smile and considers what it means to change time zones.
"It's kind of like being on drugs without the pesky high. I'm sort of confused and disoriented."
He looks buggered. He
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