John Wing Jr., Las Vegas Sun, Feb. 27, 2004

Columnist Lisa Ferguson: Wing waxes poetic about his dual careers Lisa Ferguson Friday, Feb. 27, 2004 | 8:18 a.m. John Wing Jr. is a poet, even if most members of his audiences don't know it -- and chances are good that's the case whenever he takes the stage. Though he has nurtured a successful comedy career for 18 years, Wing has penned poetic verses since he was a teen, and is the author of three poetry tomes. "I am a poet," he says, "but if you ask me what I do for a living, I'm gonna tell you I'm a comedian." The two art forms aren't as different as they may seem, according to Wing, who performs through Sunday at Riviera Comedy Club. "It's the same discipline," he explained during a recent call from his home in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley, where 16 years ago he relocated from his native Canada. "You're trying to paint a picture with words; you're trying to use the right words. You have sound, you have meter -- the whole number. They're both very similar things." Also, with poems, "You're trying to say it as efficiently as possible with some rhythm, and give your image some punch. But you want to say it quickly and in a short burst rather than a long sentence, and comedy is about that, too. It's about getting it out there -- get to the point, get to the joke." Wing, who hails from Sarnia, Ontario, (the population is about 50,000) got his start performing his brand of humor -- described as "dark," "quirky" and "sarcastic" by some reviewers -- during amateur night at a club in Toronto. "I went up the first night, June 30, 1980, and just murdered," he recalls. He returned the following week and delivered the same set, but flopped. That's when he realized he was "dead-hooked" on comedy. "The reason I'm a comic is because I bombed the second time ... I'm still trying to get back to that first night." On that quest, he performs up to 30 weeks per year, including steady gigs entertaining travelers on Royal Caribbean Cruise Line's ships. He began taking Las Vegas comedy-club stages in the late-'80s, and was hired to pen comedy sketches and jokes featured in songstress Barbra Streisand's 1999 New Year's Eve concert at MGM Grand. Over the years, the father of two girls says his material has changed. "I'm not as dark and deadpan as I used to be. I tell more stories. I'm a little more open to what's going on with the audience now than I used to be. I'm moving into the family stuff. I'm a little happier about what I'm talking about than I used to be." Wing has made more than 100 television appearances in his homeland and the States, including several guest spots of "The Tonight Show," and has written for many television productions. He and a writing partner are developing a pilot for a sketch-comedy series that he will host for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). Production is set to begin in May. Wing also recently completed "The Winter Palace," his fourth book of poetry, that is due out later this year. His other titles with publisher Mosaic Press have included 1998's "A Cup of Never Mind: New Poems"; "... and the Fear Makes Us Special" from 2000; and last year's "None of This is Probably True." From the second book comes an excerpt of the poem "And God Said": And God said, Let there be light. And there was light. And God was lonely, resting on the seventh day, He was so lonely. So God said, Let there be cable, and there was cable. Let there be DirectTV and PrimeStar and Pay-Per-View so that my children will have something to watch while worshipping me. "Ventriloquism for Dummies: Life of a Comedian" (Black Moss Press, 2002) is Wing's memoir about his first decade in the business. "It was a glorious experience," he says of writing the book "I found journals I had kept in the '80s as a comic, and I went through them and really tried to get back the experience of what it was like to be hungry and wanting it so badly ... I tried to just give you a taste of what the life was like in those days." Unfortunately, "Ventriloquism For Dummies" was forced out of print when the publishers of the wildly popular (and unrelated) "For Dummies" series of do-it-yourself books threatened a lawsuit over the similar title. Wing says he hopes his book will eventually be re-released sporting a new title. Poetry hasn't afforded 44-year-old Wing nearly the same sort of exposure he's enjoyed with comedy. He describes modern poetry's fanbase as "so small that 'cult' is too big" to describe it accurately. "To get to me, you've gotta read a book of poetry. You're not gonna see me do readings, because I just don't have a lot of time to do them." While he has said he doubts there is such a thing as perfect poetry, Wing contends perfectionism can be achieved in humor. "In a poem, you can look at it again and think, 'Oh, I could have done that better. I could have done this better.' You're never sure. It's not possible to be sure that it's perfect because there's no barometer, generally speaking. "But in a perfect joke," he explains, "you can be sure because the audience laughs in the right place, and they laugh incredibly loud and long ... That's one version of the perfect joke. Another version is a joke that you write and it's just perfect -- you can't say it any better, you can't say it any faster, all the words are right." Out for laughs Catch comic Chris Mancini -- whose other job is writing and directing short comedy/sci-fi flicks, including 1997's "Skins" and "Hit Clowns" from 2001 -- when he plays The Improv at Harrah's Monday through March 7. Also on the bill are headliner Maryellen Hooper, who was the Laugh Lines subject on June 13, 2003, and funny man Jeff Burghart, whose latest CD, "I Tease Because I Love!," is available on his website, www.jeffburghart.com. If you have kids, you're likely familiar with Emmy Award-nominated Steve Marmel's work as a writer for the animated series "Fairly Odd Parents" and "ChalkZone" which air on Nickelodeon (Cox cable channel 23), and "Cow and Chicken" on Cartoon Network (Cox cable channel 65). When he's not devising clever dialogue for cartoon characters, Marmel (aka The Raging Moderate) is also featured weekdays on a Los Angeles radio talk show and has a successful stand-up comedy career. He's scheduled to headline April 20 through April 24 at Palace Station's Laugh Trax.