Paul Gilmartin, Las Vegas Sun, April 25, 2003

Columnist Lisa Ferguson: Political landscape is a gold mine for Gilmartin Lisa Ferguson Friday, April 25, 2003 | 9:08 a.m. Lisa Ferguson's Laugh Lines column appears Fridays. Her Sun Lite Column appears Mondays. Reach her at lmsferguson@yahoo.com. Pardon Paul Gilmartin while he takes to his soapbox: "I just think there's a lot of hypocrisy with how we deal with regimes in the Middle East ... I think there are so many countries that we shouldn't be giving money to; that we shouldn't be friends with. Saudi Arabia is supposed to be so holy, and there's so much double-dealing going on there." The political peeves of comic Gilmartin -- probably best known as co-host of the quirky TBS series, "Dinner & A Movie" -- don't end there. It's not too surprising to learn he's no fan of President George W. Bush or his administration. "The one time in our country's history, when the world perceives us as being arrogant and imperialistic, we elect a C-student from Texas. It couldn't be worse timing," he says. Meanwhile Gilmartin has a "huge problem" with organized religion. And don't even get him started on the evils of big business: "The whole world, I think, is headed toward just a bad place in terms of conglomeration." Not exactly the stuff of which side-splitting stand-up comedy is made. Or is it? Gilmartin takes off his TV host hat to revisit the comedy stage about 12 weeks each year, performing an act that's packed with his views on world politics. In fact, he warns show goers: "If you're a Bush-loving Texan who takes his religion seriously, you might want to leave the room." That likely won't be a problem when Gilmartin plays the Riviera Comedy Club tonight through Sunday. The gig marks his return to Las Vegas following a 12-year absence (he last performed at Catch a Rising Star when it was housed at Bally's). Calling recently from his home in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley, Gilmartin explained he's "a little hesitant about really going full-throttle with a lot of the political stuff in Vegas" due to the city's "touristy" nature. "A lot of times, those tend not to be the people that want to hear political stuff ... I'm certainly not gonna ram it down their throats if they're not enjoying it," he said. Same goes for his collection of silly, self-penned poems. Among them: "Sister Joan," a rhyme about a nun who rethinks her vows upon meeting a renegade biker; "Circus Love," about the romance that blooms between a pair of sideshow freaks; and the tale of Tim, uberfan of the Green Bay Packers. The poems have become a sort of calling card for Gilmartin in cities (Las Vegas not among them) where radio's syndicated "The Bob and Tom Show" airs. For a decade the on-air personalities have played recordings of Gilmartin's stand-up act, including the poems, for listeners. In "Bob and Tom" towns, Gilmartin says, comedy club audiences expect to hear his poems. "One of the things that's exciting about going to a non-'Bob and Tom' city is getting a break from doing all of them." (A few of the gems can be heard on paulgilmartin.com.) There will not, however, be a reprieve in Las Vegas from Gilmartin's association with "Dinner & A Movie." On the show (which airs 5 p.m. Mondays on Cox cable channel 7), he and co-hosts Lisa Kushell, Tom Dorfmeister and Larry The Repairman, along with Chef Claud Mann, fashion a meal themed around and between breaks from watching former big-screen flicks. The ensemble's witty banter is improvised; the cooking -- thankfully -- is not. "When you're watching a sitcom ... you're just sitting there waiting for the joke," says Gilmartin, who earned a Cable Ace Award nomination for his work on the show. With "Dinner & a Movie," "You can lure people in with the food and maybe surprise them a little bit with a joke. Juggling the two things at the same time kind of keeps it refreshing." In the eight years since landing the co-hosting gig, Gilmartin has "learned to love, in just a campy way, horrible movies," he says. "It has to be a horrible movie that takes itself seriously, like 'Roadhouse.' Patrick Swayze is the king of cheesy movies because ... his jaw is just set and he's saying some ridiculous dialogue. I love that." Gilmartin's culinary skills, however, aren't quite as refined. "I should know so much more than I do, but I don't." What he does know is comedy. Gilmartin started his stand-up career in 1987, after switching his major at Indiana University at Bloomington from biochemistry to theater (he graduated Phi Beta Kappa). He spent a year studying comedy at the training center of Chicago's famed Second City Theatre. Within a few years, he landed a steady (albeit low-paying) gig: Chicago-based Gilmartin would write and fax jokes daily to Los Angeles for comic Dennis Miller to recite on Miller's former syndicated late-night talk show. After Gilmartin left the Windy City for L.A., he penned material for the 1995 Emmy Awards broadcast. Then along came "Dinner & A Movie." The show has afforded 40-year-old Gilmartin public visibility that he's putting to use: offering his talents to favorite political organizations for fund-raisers and such. When he's not writing to government representatives about his political concerns, he's telling jokes about the subject. "I'm probably enjoying performing now more than ever before, because I'm doing material that I really believe in," Gilmartin says. "Whenever I can make people laugh about something that really (ticks) me off, there's something cathartic about it." Out for laughs Six episodes of Game Show Network's upcoming "National Lampoon's Funny Money" series (which begins airing June 15 on Cox cable channel 68) will be taped Monday and Tuesday at The Improv at Harrah's. Two contestants answer trivia questions and interact with a panel of stand-up comics, attempting to guess what the studio audience will find funny. The player with the greater "comedy IQ" wins said silly moola. The public is invited to attend the tapings; call The Improv box office (369-5222) for times. Greg Proops, one of the improv-comedy geniuses regularly featured on ABC's "Whose Line is it Anyway?" settles in May 16 and May 17 for a pair of performances at Excalibur's Catch a Rising Star.