Kurt Metzger
written by Ken Carlson
“ONE TIME,” SAYS COMEDIAN KURT METZGER, “someone came up to me after a show and said, ‘You were funny and I don’t usually like angry comics.’ I’m not really trying to do that [be angry]. I want you take me into your trust, then I bring up ... fisting. I don’t want to just yell Fuck You Fuck You! If I do it right, it comes out great. If I don’t, it’s just – ‘What’s this angry guy doing here?’”
The angry comic. You hear that description used quite a bit. They take to the stage stomping and ranting like professional wrestlers. If they weren’t booked tonight they’d be holed up in their apartment by the open window, sporting a stained wife beater and warm Schaefer, shouting at all the sons of bitches out on the street.
Actually Metzger plays it from the other side, instead of volume making his case, he uses the gift of candid shock, a delicate subtext of What the fuck? One minute he’s talking about ice cream, the next he’s gently accusing fans of one brand of supporting Nazis.
“Kurt is a lumbering, hairy joke monster,” says comedian Julian McCullough. “His intimidating presence and dark material is matched only by his masterful joke writing and deeply hidden fragility. I think he is one of the top five funniest comedians in America. He is number 26 in Canada.”
IT’S A TYPICAL EVENING AT COMIX ON 14th STREET. In the bar, hanging on the wall closest to the main stage, a monitor is repeating a promotional segment previewing upcoming shows at the club. Metzger’s name is listed on several themed lineups, ranging from Cringe Humor to Alternative; another sign that his buzz is spreading and so is his following.
On this evening he shows up a little haggard. He’s had to wake up early to get work done on an upcoming writing project. He’s worked on a patchwork of programs; America’s Funniest Mom, The Video Game Awards, Ugly Americans, and a bunch of MTV reality shows he describes as “appalling”.
He enjoys the process of working with other writers, being in a room and bouncing ideas off them and makes a point not to be married to his material. “You can always make more jokes,” he points out. “I don’t get all balled up about it, just because someone else is writing the same thing or doesn’t like it. I’ll just do something different. The best show I ever wrote for was The Chappelle Show. That was freelance, not in an office. I pitched them stuff from home and sent it in. I was really broke, three months behind on my rent. They fronted me the cash to pay it off, like $3,000, which was cool.”
Metzger has been working at this for about a dozen years. For publicity’s sake, he feels the sum of all those years’ work don’t come close to the impact from making it to the semi-finals of Last Comic Standing, which can be disheartening. “A steady living?” asks Metzger in response to a question about his career path. “I don’t know how I got by. I lived off girlfriends for a while. It’s never been easy for me. I got writing jobs when I could, get some city spots when I can, road stuff here and there. Even now, I’m still building up my following. It definitely doesn’t suck like it used to. It’s a bunch of little things. I’m not starving.”
“I’M SICK OF ALL THE GODDAMN FACEBOOK SPAM FLYERS I get from people for all their stupidly named shows!” says Metzger, as we discussed the New York comedy scene and the glut of irritating interruptions and promotional noise he receives. “How about that? I’m really sick of that! I’m sick that when I want to trash someone, someone else says, ‘Oh, he really works hard to promote himself.’ Fuck you. Really? That’s what you want to be known for, how good you are at marketing?”
However, he goes on to admit, “I really could use some marketing. So if any of those people read this, Fuck You, but I could use some help with my web site.”
What seems to stick in Metzger’s craw isn’t seeing the need for taking the time, as a performer, to get your name out there, it’s the overwhelming level of importance placed on it in place of talent. “It’s not even really people in particular,” says Metzger. “It’s like a meme; the idea that you have to brand yourself right away. So many people who do that are victims of such a shitty, shitty mindset that maybe they shouldn’t be trickling into it. Let’s put it that way to be charitable. It really bugs me.”
“Breaking comedy down into categories, like any other form of entertainment,” he says. “Those are legitimate designations when they start pulling in a lot of money. When people say ‘Alternative Comedy’, there is a significant market. It’s a thing because people are making money. But on a comedic level, it’s horse shit. Everybody has jokes. Everybody has a fuckin’ joke. Even the shitheads that sketch half of them, even if it’s not a joke, it is. It really is just for marketing purposes. I’ll do anybody’s room (in New York) and sometimes I forget (in smaller downtown rooms, for instance), ‘Holy Shit, there’s no energy in this shitty room.’ You have to calibrate for that. You see a lot of guys bomb in scenes like that. I just did this hooka bar, Karma. I’ve never seen such a listless, awful crowd. You look at them and ask, ‘What do you want?’ You can’t make fun of them either because they’ve been traumatized from high school. It’s a delicate thing because my bearing is the opposite from the shit in those rooms. I fuckin’ hate understated writer-itis delivery, like you ate a plate of ribs before you got there. A lot of places only want to hear that, the delivering of jokes in a dry manner, and you have to be careful not to come off like a bully. I’m already suspect because I talk like an asshole. It’s practice. I’m trying to temper it so I can go anywhere. Some people have their crowd. It’s never my crowd. I guess it’s a skill I have to work on. Theoretically you should be able to play any room. That’s something that’s in my head, but it may not be realistic.”
For someone who has been placed in many categories and carries an air of not giving a fuck, Metzger clearly makes distinctions between what will work where; what certain people will demand or others will sit through. He wants to play the road more but guards against being, “Too New Yorky. I’ve got to slow things down before I tell my fuckin’ retard rape jokes.”
He also cautions against the over analysis of the message behind material, that the point will probably be lost on some who take it too seriously by those who forget it’s about the laughs. “People think in symbols all the time. I went to England for the Real Deal Comedy Jam. All black shows need to have the word Jam in them, or royalty of some kinds. It was so weird. English black people are nothing like the black people here. American black people are way cooler. The English ones dress better. A black crowd here will get into my jokes. Over there, you have to talk in a way they’ve seen on DefJam. It’s like a fetish. They don’t even know what good stand-up is. They’ve got like three good ones out of a thousand. So if you don’t speak in those speech patterns – it’s almost like they want you to sing a fuckin’ song.”
METZGER STARTED OUT PLAYING black rooms in Philadelphia. As a beginner, he enjoyed the open mics there because they drew a crowd for shows like Blazin’ Thursdays at the Laff House. “I was from the suburbs,” Metzger recalls, “so an urban Philly environment was different from the black kids I grew up with. I was awful when I started. I was trying the make the audience not hate me so I picked up all these bad habits that you pick up from hacks. But all the guys from the chitlin circuit liked me. All the guys I thought were funny were encouraging to me.”
“When you start out, there’s a lot of ‘Why does this fuckin’ guy have this and I don’t?’” says Metzger. “The answer is – you’re not funny enough. It has nothing to do with the other dude. I usually have a spurt of several jokes that I do at once. Then I keep doing them. Then I get sick of them. Then I change them around. Hopefully, that new state of agitation will lead to some new shit. I’ve never been good at sitting down and writing my set. I think a lot of people are like that. I try to have some vague ideas I think are funny. I’ll sneak it in with a joke that works. If it bombs, it bombs.”
“I’ve had the pleasure of watching Kurt develop,” says comedian Jay Oakerson. “From his very first time on stage to now. Every time I watch Kurt, I am blown away by his writing ability.”
“I just didn’t want a job,” says Metzger on his career and expectations, “so it’s all gravy for me. I don’t even want to do my fun job tonight. It’s amazing how much I’ve regressed into a twelve year old. That’s exactly what I thought stand-up would be – to live like an adolescent forever – the teenage pinnacle of what you want to do: play video games, sleep ‘til noon, maybe get laid.”
Kurt Metzger is a comedian based in New York. Find his clips on YouTube.