Some 80’s Comedians Are Still Funny

Thursday night brought long time comic Will Durst to Sacramento.  Now I’m not as up on stand-up comedy as I used to be (anyone else remember Stand-Up Stand-Up on Comedy Central in the early 90’s), so I wasn’t too sure if Mr. Durst, a purely political comedian who was still telling Reagan jokes the last time I saw him, was still funny.  Turns out he is.

Thursday night’s event at Marilyn’s was a celebration for the “Comic Press News,” a local rag that focuses on nationall political cartoonage (DMZ, remember having to read those things for Carmazzi’s civics class?) which has now changed its name to “The Humor Times.”  The evening was opened up by the local Free Hooch Comedy Troupe, who did some edgy and very salient sketch comedy for the sparse crowd.   Then Mr. Durst came on the stage and did a good hour of solid, current political humor that really killed.  (My favorite local joke of the evening was, “I love Sacramento, I really do.  And I would live here in a second except for one small thing-August…which here happens to last from April to September.”)

After not seeing Will Durst for many years, color me impressed by his act, his material and his stage presence.  He really came off as an old pro, and I would put him up there with other big 80’s standouts like Larry Miller and the late  Richard Jeni who never lost their ability to entertain with current material, and didn’t feel the need to anchor talk shows or go into acting full-time or try to launch a sitcom.

My question is this:  Did anyone know that this show was going on?  There were only about 30-40 people in the crowd and as far as I could tell, almost no advertising announcing this show.   I really don’t think this is the kind of town where you can get away with not advertising for your events.  I, for one, will try to do a better job on this here website to promote items that catch my fancy and I encourage everyone else not to be shy in doing the same.  Bring it.