Here are two of the more unusual acts making the comedy club rounds these days: A man who eats light bulbs, and a 72-year-old comedian who tells jokes about Alzheimer's disease.
It's kind of a bizarre evening, but worth the price of admission - if you don't mind a lot of silliness, you're not easily offended, and if you're not expecting the typical I'm-tired-of-airline-food-and/or-my-cat jokes.Feature act Richard Carter is a former Salt Laker who became a professional comedian at age 65, after retiring from his job as an artist at the Deseret News (where he perfected his sardonic spin on life). Since moving to California, he has appeared at the Comedy Store in L.A. and on TV's Comic Strip Live and Evening at the Improv.
Carter's act gets better with age - the older he gets, the more believable his jokes are. In fact Carter has a great thing going here: If he flubs up a line he can blame it on senility; if the audience doesn't laugh he can say "I don't care, I can't hear you anyway."
Deteriorating body parts are the centerpiece of his act. There are jokes about dementia, incontinence, impotence and flatulence:
"I drove here from California with my turn signal on the whole way."
"Alzheimer's isn't a bad disease. When you have Alzheimer's, there's no such thing as a rerun on TV."
"I'm getting just about all the exercise I can handle these days just being a pallbearer."
Through it all runs Carter's message: Don't just ignore old people; all this stuff will happen to you one day, too. You know what a rest home is, he tells his audience. "It's where they send you if you refuse to die on time."
Headliner Ray Wold has appeared on Circus of the Stars and the Tonight Show. But only in person do you get the full effect of his manic act. By the end of the evening, Wold is dripping with sweat, is splattered with shaving cream and still manages to jump a flaming rope while riding on a unicycle.
Wold is basically a juggler. Not a particularly great juggler. But he manages to produce such a frenzy on stage, and to smile so goofily, that it doesn't much matter that he occasionally drops his props.
He sets his clothes on fire. He does lasso tricks. He juggles while standing on the top of a moving ladder; he chews up a glass light bulb; he makes lewd balloon art.
It's all kind of dumb, but fun, too - a perfect evening of senility and puerility.