Rocky LaPorte, Las Vegas Sun

Columnist Lisa Ferguson: All is relative for funnyman Rocky LaPorte Lisa Ferguson Friday, April 18, 2003 | 8:45 a.m. Lisa Ferguson's Laugh Lines column appears Fridays. Her Sun Lite Column appears Mondays. Reach her at lmsferguson@yahoo.com. Few things are more important to Rocky LaPorte than his family. After all, they're good for laughs. "We got a couple of mob guys in my family," jokes Brooklyn-born, southside Chicago-bred LaPorte, who performs Tuesday through April 26 at Palace Station's Laugh Trax. There was the uncle who was in show business, sort of: "He was on the radio all the time in New York. Well, it wasn't really a radio -- it was a police scanner. He was known as 'The Perp,' those were his call letters ... He died not too long ago. He drowned. He was in the trunk of a Coup DeVille at the time." And the hits (pardon the pun) keep on coming: LaPorte's brother is a cop in the Windy City. "I don't want to say the Chicago Police Department is corrupt, but he just got promoted from patrolman to don." Speaking of the long arm of the law, LaPorte explains, "I'm Italian and my ex-wife is Irish. There's two groups of people you want to get liquored up together. It's true: We had our wedding reception at police headquarters." Not even LaPorte's four kids are safe onstage: "They told me they like animals, so I took 'em to the track." His recent divorce -- and reemergence onto the singles scene after 18 years of marriage -- are also fodder. "I don't know how to talk to women," LaPorte says. "My buddies, they go, 'Just talk about stuff you did before you got married.' So now I'm going around asking people if they saw 'Saturday Night Fever.' " LaPorte, 44, is "gun-shy" when it comes to dating: An interesting choice of words from a guy who has been on the receiving end of a bullet not once, but twice, and who was stabbed -- the results of several robberies he endured while working a multitude of odd jobs during his pre-comedy years. In 1975, after fibbing about his age, LaPorte entered the Army. At 16 he'd finished basic training and was preparing to be stationed overseas when he was found out and honorably discharged from the service. In the years that followed Rocky (fittingly) was a boxer -- a bullet wound cut that career short -- and a delivery truck driver, among other occupations. "I was just in some really bad neighborhoods," LaPorte, with his New York-Italian-tough-guy accent, explained of his wounds during a recent interview from Los Angeles. "The trucking outfit I was working for said, 'Hey, we're gonna put you on a better route,' and they started sending me (to deliver) to prisons ... Then I started delivering to these really nice malls out in the suburbs." It was while delivering a load of furniture in 1988 that he stumbled into comedy: A store manager convinced him to give it a try. "And that night I went to an open-mike place and I did really good," LaPorte recalls. "The manager of the club goes, 'How long you been doing comedy?' And I said, 'About five minutes.' " LaPorte was offered his first paying comedy gig on the spot, and quit his day job later that year. In 1990 he took home the top prize in the Johnnie Walker National Comedy Search, which shifted his stand-up career into high gear. He also began dabbling in acting that year, appearing on an episode of "Cheers." Since then LaPorte has guested repeatedly on more than a dozen network- and cable-comedy series (including "Comic Strip Live," "The New Make Me Laugh Show" and "Evening at The Improv"), and is scheduled to make his first appearance on "The Tonight Show" this year. Two years ago LaPorte shot the pilot episode of his self-titled sitcom for CBS. On "The Rocky LaPorte Show," he played a blue-collar Chicago phone company worker with a wife, kids and a best friend. Unfortunately, the show failed to find a home on the network's schedule and the episode never aired. "I came out against (sitcoms starring) Bette Midler, Geena Davis, John Goodman," he says. "I heard (the networks) paid those people so much money that they had to see those (shows) through." Now LaPorte has big-screen dreams. He "had a nice part" in "Polish Spaghetti," a romantic comedy starring rocker Meat Loaf. The film's production dates have been pushed back several times, however, and LaPorte is uncertain when he'll get to work on the flick. In the meantime, he's performing stand-up at clubs and before corporate types at private gigs, along with editing a comedy CD he recently recorded. LaPorte is also working on a book based on a bit from his act, about -- what else? -- some of his uncles. Onstage, LaPorte will ask an audience member "where they're from and they'll go, 'New York,' and I'll go, 'I've got an uncle in New York. He's got a restaurant -- it's called Eat Dis.' " Chicago? "My uncle's got a gas station there -- it's called Pump Dis." The book is "gonna have pictures of all my different uncles at their businesses," he explains, "like my little family photo album." Out for laughs If you've watched any prime-time television during the past two decades, chances are you've seen Marty Rackham. The comic's acting abilities landed him roles on "L.A. Law," "Seinfeld" "Matlock," "Murder, She Wrote" and "Murphy Brown." He holds court at the Riviera's Comedy Club Monday through Thursday. Also coming to the Riv (April 25 through April 27) to stretch his stand-up legs is Paul Gilmartin, host of the quirky TBS series, "Dinner and A Movie." Gilmartin is a Second City Theatre alum and has written shtick for Dennis Miller as well as for Emmy Awards broadcasts. No joke: Effective May 1, the price of admission at the Tropicana's Comedy Stop is $19.95, including tax, gratuity and two drinks.