‘Last Comic’ winner Bodden in Cleveland for shows at Hilarities

Material about the president doesn’t much interest Alonzo Bodden anymore, and funnyman finds no humor in another topic

“To be honest with you, Trump is boring.”

The words “Trump” and “boring” don’t usually appear together in the same sentence, but for comedian Alonzo Bodden, jokes about President Donald J. Trump are overdone. They’re low-hanging fruit at this point.

“It’s [always] the same thing,” says Bodden, who is set to perform through Oct. 24 at Hilarities 4th Street Theatre in Cleveland, in a recent phone interview.

“I mean, what day hasn’t he lied? What day hasn’t he said something ridiculous?”

The challenge then, for a topical comedian such as Bodden, is acknowledging political news in his sets without boring himself or his audience.

He says his audience won’t clutch their pearls at a few Trump jokes when he does decide to sprinkle in a few, though.

“The difference between me and a lot of white comics is that people don’t walk into my show expecting me to be a Trump supporter,” Bodden says.

“They see a big Black guy on stage, and they’re pretty confident of which side of Black Lives Matter I’m gonna stand on,” he adds with a laugh.

Bodden says a comedian’s job is to “speak truth to power,” adding that the only subject he would never joke about is the serious effects of the novel coronavirus.

“People are losing their lives; people have no income and can’t pay their rent and stuff — there’s nothing funny about that,” he says. “But fortunately, we have the president, the Senate and the Congress so ... that’s two hours [of material] right there.”

Bodden is best known for winning the third season of NBC’s “Last Comic Standing,” as well as for four comedy specials, his most recent being Amazon’s “Heavy Lightweight.”

While many in his industry begin dreaming of hitting the stage while they’re kids, Bodden says it was never his dream to become a comedian.

In fact, he actually had an entire career in aerospace — working as an airplane mechanic — for many years before making the career switch.

Bodden was 30 when he caught the comedy bug, shortly after training airplane mechanics at Mc

Donnell-Douglas.

“When I walked to the front of the classroom for

the first time — which [normally] makes people super nervous — I wasn’t nervous at all. It was the most natural thing in the world to me: just stand up there and talk to a group.”

Cracking up the crews he trained f ur thered thoughts of a career in comedy, and working on planes is a thing of the past

Although, he does point out that if he had started his comedy career sooner, he may have carved a coveted space for himself in the 1980s comedy boom — a time when comedians were lauded (and paid) like rock stars.

“There were three television stations, and if you got on Carson, 30 million people saw you,” Bodden says.

“But now you have Netflix, Amazon — my latest special was released on Amazon — and [you also have] YouTube and Twitter.

“I’m too old for TikTok,” he continues with a laugh. “I legally can’t be involved with TikTok.”

SUBMITTED Alonzo Bodden was the winner of the third season of NBC’s “Last Comic Standing.”