NO REST FOR THE WICKED
Amy Schumer brings her sweet- faced subversive comedy to HBO special
This has been the Year of Amy Schumer. She can apparently do no wrong, no matter how outrageously irreverent and salacious she might spew.
The New York City native is, without question, not just the funniest female act on this continent but can also take on all comers, regardless of gender.
So what has Schumer done lately? She wrote and starred in the smash flick Trainwreck. She won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Variety Sketch Series for her hit TV show Inside Amy Schumer. She hosted Saturday Night Live last Saturday.
And Amy Schumer: Live at the Apollo, her first HBO standup special, airs this Saturday at 10 p. m. on HBO Canada. Judging from the content, it won’t be Schumer’s last special on HBO, either.
It has been quite the rocket ride for Schumer, 34. And quite unexpected at that.
There might have been an early indication when she was voted both “Class Clown” and “Teacher’s Worst Nightmare” upon finishing high school.
On the other hand, Schumer placed just fourth in Season 5 of Last Comic Standing.
Even her early years at the Just for Laughs — with which she has had much history — didn’t exactly indicate superstardom.
She made her festival debut in the New Faces series. Then she moved on to do some fest TV shows, which led to her performing an Off- JFL solo show at the 100- seat Théâtre Sainte- Catherine.
But it was just over four years ago when Schumer was playing second- fiddle to a not-so- pitbullish Bobby Slayton in the Just for Laughs fest’s Bar Mitzvah Show series that surely had to have her questioning her comedy existence.
But her luck was to change. Schumer was conscripted to roast Charlie Sheen on Comedy Central, and she not only did a masterful skewering of Chuck but also fellow roasters Mike Tyson and William Shatner. She followed that up with an equally vicious roasting of Roseanne.
And so impressed were the Comedy Central execs that she was rewarded with her own series, Inside Amy Schumer.
Schumer also returned to Just for Laughs, performing a soldout solo show at the Metropolis in 2013 and hosting a gala in 2014.
Her price tag will likely be considerably elevated for future fest gigs.
To her credit, though, Schumer’s comedy continues to evolve. She calls herself a “sex comic.” Others call her a “subversive feminist.” Whatever. She is hilarious. She goes to places where few comics dare to tread. And she delivers with that disarming,
sweet- girl next- door demeanour, which belies the nastiness that lurks inside.
In her hour- long Live at the Apollo special — directed by no less a comic authority than Chris Rock — she riffs on an array of issues. But her biggest target is herself. Regardless of recent successes, she is hysterically self- deprecating — although she is hardly the plus- sized ogre she makes herself out to be.
Regardless, she talks about how in L. A. she is only up for roles of girls “getting gastric bypasses or Gilbert Grape’s mother.” After being cast in the lead role in Trainwreck, the filmmakers had three simple rules for her: “Have fun; be yourself; and stop eating.”
The last was difficult: “I eat until I’m in pain. Take a breather. Then eat until more pain. I was born weighing 150 pounds.” Nor can she recall ever saying in her life that she forgot to eat lunch.
Schumer thought it was way cool that she was given a stunt double in Trainwreck — until she found out it was a guy.
She claims she’s not a real woman — that she’s “just harvesting organs for one.”
Nonetheless, she does have
hard and fast rules on dating: “I’m old- school. I feel that the guy should always pay on the first date — for sex.”
Her subversive feminism comes shining through on sex: “Girls are made to feel disgusting for liking sex.” Pause. “I initiate sex with dudes 50 per cent of the time.” Pause. “The other 50 per cent — we don’t have it.”
It’s all in the timing. And Schumer’s is impeccable.
ALBUM IS ‘ MORE OF A MIRROR THAN A RECORD ’
This has also been quite the seminal year for another outrageous American performer,
Kinky Friedman — although not nearly as lucrative.
The Kinkster, as he prefers to be called, has released his first album in 32 years, but its tone is not nearly as outrageous as the tunes for which he has been known. The Loneliest Man I Ever Met is, in fact, soulful and soothing and, dare we say, a sweet homage to his country/ folk/ blues roots.
He croons the tunes of Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, Merle Haggard, Warren Zevon and even the Broadway composing tandem of Lerner and Loewe. He brings an abundance of heart and genuine feeling to renderings of
Nelson’s Bloody Mary Morning and Dylan’s Girl From the North Country, as well as to his own compositions Lady Yesterday and Wild Man from Borneo.
It’s a wildly eclectic disc from a wildly eclectic character. The Kinkster is a singer, songwriter, guitarist, satirist, author, playwright, columnist, chess master, animal- rights activist and purveyor of his own brand of tequila. And can’t forget: He made a passionate though unsuccessful bid to become governor of his home state of Texas, where he moved as a kid from his native Chicago.
In the midst of a gruelling, continent- wide tour to support the new disc, Friedman, 70, touches down in Montreal, Sunday at the Petit Campus. His most recent visit here was three years ago, when he came to promote his book Heroes of a Texas Childhood as well as the tell- all bio-opus he co- wrote with Billy Bob Thornton, The Billy Bob Tapes: A Cave Full of Secrets. Prior to that visit, the last time he had performed in town was in 1973.
The Kinkster is pumped about his new disc. “This is something I can actually stand to play repeatedly,” he says with his usual gusto in a phone interview.
“This is something where I didn’t care about what radio stations or charts thought. This is something not for background music at frat parties. This is something for people to bring their imaginations to the party. It’s more of a mirror than a record. I felt as relaxed as I have ever felt, and not just because of my Mexican mouthwash.”
The latter is a reference to his Man in Black Tequila brand — which he describes as “not your father’s tequila, rather your grandfather’s gardener’s tequila.”
The tour he has undertaken — 35 shows over 36 days — might be too daunting for some musicians half his age. “It’s an idea of Willie’s ( Nelson) that if you start running on adrenalin, you don’t need to take a day off,” he says.
It’s almost as intense as the political campaign he undertook for Texas governor in 2006. But he has no immediate plans to make another run for office: “We won that race every place but Texas.”