All in the family with Maniscalco
As a comic, Sebastian Maniscalco sums up people’s weird habits with one question: “Why would you do that?”
Most every time he uses social media, he asks himself the same question. The observational humour that sells out theatres can prompt a different reaction on Facebook.
“It could be anything, and the comments start coming in,” he says over the phone. “I did a post recently about somebody who had a car packed with (garbage). Burger King, books … I did something about the car being dirty, and now you get people going, ‘It’s an illness! She’s a hoarder!’
“Come on! It’s like, everything you do, they’ll find something in the background of your video. ‘Oh, you’re using that type of soap? I saw it in your bathroom … that soap is bad.’ It’s like, what the …?”
Welcome to the age of complaining, when everything online can and will be used against you. For comics like Maniscalco, who plays Niagara Fallsview Casino Resort on Thursday and Friday, it feels like a constant tap dance on hurt feelings.
“I don’t understand it. I’ve never felt that strongly about anything that I gotta go out there and comment on somebody’s page about it. Nowadays, it’s amazing. I don’t let it bother me. I get on stage and I kind of hit it head on.
“I do a thing about how everybody was up in arms about the guy that got ripped out of his plane seat because he wouldn’t get off the plane. I’m like, does anybody listen? If I’m on a plane and somebody tells me to get off, I get off. There’s no lip! I don’t give anybody lip.”
For the most part, Maniscalco’s crowd isn’t concerned with tweeting. They aren’t taking selfies at his shows (he prefers calling them ‘lonelies’). They come to see their own families reflected in the hilarious stories of his Italian-immigrant upbringing in Chicago. A typical show will have audience members nudging each other, whispering “We did that, too.” Most every time Maniscalco meets fans after shows, they ask “Did you grow up in our family?”
“I thought it was just my family, but talking about it on stage it seems to be a lot of people’s
families,” he says.
Stories about shopping with his mom. Sibling rivalries. Surprise house guests. Serving Sanka. Maniscalco has been talking about his family since he first stepped on a comedy stage 18 years ago, and the material will never run out.
“I haven’t tapped everything that’s there. It’s always growing, it’s always a work in progress,” he says. “The obvious things are there, but then when you start really digging deep, you get a lot more material. I don’t think it’ll ever stop.”
While he went without plenty of things, Maniscalco didn’t have a tough childhood. The frugality just came out in odd ways. When he asked for a dog, his dad told him to walk three doors down and pet their dog.
“Our family basically masked our feelings with humour. There was no in-between, either you were laughing or you were crying. No middle ground there. But I had a great middle class upbringing from two great parents,” he adds.
“There was no drama like a lot of people I talk to. There’s substance abuse, there’s fighting between families, there’s divorce. Nothing that big ever happened (to me) growing up. I mean, later on in my life my parents got divorced, which is something I’ve been talking about recently on stage. Having your parents divorce in their 60s rather than their 30s … my mom’s dating at 70 years old.”
His comedy never comes from a “dark place,” and it doesn’t come from a political place, either. Maniscalco lets others tee off on the president — he’s content talking about awkward first dates.
“You start getting into politics, there’s so much of it on TV and there’s a lot of comedians that cover it far better than I could ever do it,” he says. “It just doesn’t make me laugh. It seems like the Trump thing is played out. How many times are you going to make fun of Trump? How many times you going to make fun of Obama? Whoever’s in office.
“Seems every fart someone blows, they’re going to make fun of it. To me, people are coming as an escape from that political stuff … I just keep it familyoriented and let the Bill Mahers of the world take care of the politics.”
Which means, sorry, no Trump tweets from Maniscalco.
He grits his teeth tweeting about anything, really.
“I’m, like, 44 years old and I gotta worry about tweeting something twice a day?” he says.
“I mean, if you look at the people that come to my shows, they’re like ‘We had to get a babysitter tonight.’ They’ve got no time to comment on someone’s Instagram photo because they’re wearing a short skirt.”